THE  SWORD  OF 
DEBORAH 


<y 


F.TENNYSON  JESSE 


THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 
F.  TENNYSON  JESSE 


"Women  are  timid,  cower  and  shrink 
At  show  of  danger,  some  folk  think; 
But  men  there  are  who  for  their  lives 
Dare  not  so  far  asperse  their  wives. 
We  let  that  pass — so  much  is  clear, 
Though  little  dangers  they  may  fear, 
When  greater  dangers  men  environ, 
Then  women  show  a  front  of  iron; 
And,  gentle  in  their  manner,  they 
Do  bold  things  in  a  quiet  way." 

THOMAS  DUNN  ENGLISH, 


A  "FANY"  WITH  THE  AERIAL  TORPEDO  DROPPED  INTO 

THE  CAMP 


THE     SWO  RD 
OF    DEBORAH 

FIRST-HAND    IMPRESSIONS   OF    THE 
BRITISH  WOMEN'S  ARMY  IN  FRANCE 


BY 
F.  TENNYSON  JESSE 

AUTHOR  OF  "SECRET  BREAD,"  "THE  MILKY  WAY,"  ETC. 


NEW  ^UUr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1919, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


•  •*  •  •..• 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


FOREWORD 

THIS  little  book  was  written  at  the  request  of 
the  Ministry  of  Information  in  March  of  1918; 
it  was  only  released  for  publication — in  spite  of 
the  need  for  haste  in  its  compiling  which  had  been 
impressed  on  me,  and  with  which  I  had  complied 
— shortly  before  Christmas.  Hence  it  may  seem 
somewhat  after  the  fair.  But  it  appears  to  me 
that  people  should  still  be  told  about  the  workers 
of  the  war  and  what  they  did,  even  now  when  we 
are  all  struggling  back  into  our  chiffons — perhaps 
more  now  than  ever.  For  we  should  not  forget, 
and  how  should  we  remember  if  we  have  never 
known? 


434880 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I    A.B.C 1  13 

II    THE  FEVER  CHART  OF  WAR   ....  17 

III  BACKGROUNDS 26 

IV  MY  FIRST  CONVOY 34 

'    V    OUTPOSTS 41 

VI    WAACS:  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES    .     .  48 

VII    THE  BROWN  GRAVES 58 

VIII    VIGNETTES 65 

IX    EVENING 74 

X    NIGHT      . 84 

XI    "AND  THE  BRIGHT  EYES  or  DANGER"   .  93 

XII    REST 102 

XIII  GENERAL   SERVANTS   AND   A   GENERAL 

QUESTION m 

XIV  NOTES  AND  QUERIES    .     .     .    '.    .     .  123 


vli 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

A    "FANNY"     WITH    THE     AERIAL    TORPEDO 

DROPPED  INTO  THE  CAMP    ....  Frontispiece 

PAGE 

H.  M.  THE  QUEEN  INSPECTING  A  VAD  DOMESTIC 
STAFF 48 

A  VAD  MOTOR  CONVOY 48 

WAAC  GARDENERS  AT  WORK  IN  THE  CEMETERY  .  48 

WREATHS  FROM  MOTHERS  OF  THE  FALLEN    .      .  48 

WAACS  IN  THE  BAKERY        .......  80 

WAAC  COOKS  PREPARING  VEGETABLES     ...  80 

WAAC  ENCAMPMENT  PROTECTED  BY  SAND  BAGS  .  80 


THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 


"Thou  art  an  Amazon,  and  fightest  with 
the  sword  of  Deborah." 

— i  HENRY  VI.  i.  ii. 


THE 

SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

CHAPTER  I 

A.B.C, 

THIS  world  of  initials  ...  in  which  the  mem- 
bers of  the  British  Expeditionary  Force  live  and 
move — it  is  a  bewildering  place  for  the  outsider. 
Particularly  to  one  who,  like  the  writer,  has  never 
been  able  to  think  in  initials,  any  more  than  in 
dates  or  figures.  The  members  of  the  B.E.F. — 
and  that  at  least  is  a  set  of  letters  that  conveys 
something  to  all  of  us — not  only  live  amidst 
initials,  but  are  themselves  embodied  initials.  To 
them  the  string  of  letters  they  reel  off  is  no  mean- 
ingless form,  no  mere  abracadabra  to  impress  the 
supplicant,  but  each  is  a  living  thing,  coloured,  defi- 
nitely patterned,  standing  for  something  in  flesh 
and  blood,  or  stone  and  mortar ;  something  concrete 
and  present  to  the  mind's  eye  at  the  mere  mention. 

Just  as,  to  anyone  who  does  not  know  New 
York,  it  seems  as  though  all  the  streets  must  sound 
exactly  alike,  being  merely  numbered,  while,  to 
anyone  who  knows  them,  the  words  East  Sixty 

13 


14  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

First,  say,  are  as  distinct  from  East  Twenty  First, 
distinct  with  a  whole  vivid  personality  of  their 
own,  as  Half  Moon  Street  from  Threadneedle 
Street — so,  to  the  initiate  in  the  game,  the  letters 
so  lightly  rattled  off  to  designate  this  or  that 
official  or  institution  stand  for  vivid,  real,  colour- 
able things. 

But  at  first  one  is  reminded  forcibly  of  that 
scene  in  "Anna  Karenina"  where  Levin  proposes 
to  Kitty  for  the  second  time  by  means  of  writing 
in  chalk  on  a  table  the  letters  "W,  y,  t,  m,  i,  c,  n, 
b,  d,  t,  m,  n,  o,  t,"  and  Kitty,  with  great  intelli- 
gence, guesses  that  they  mean  "When  you  told  me 
it  could  never  be,  did  that  mean  never,  or  then?" 
Kitty,  if  you  remember,  replies  in  initials  at  almost 
equal  length,  and  Levin  displays  an  intelligence 
equal  to  hers.  I  had  always  found  that  scene 
hard  of  credence,  but  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  Levin  and  Kitty  would  have  been 
invaluable  at  H.Q.B.R.C.S.,  A.P.O.  3,  B.E.F. 

And  the  fog  of  initials  is  symbolic  in  a  double 
manner;  for  not  only  do  the  initials  stand  for  what 
they  represent  to  those  who  know,  but  in  their 
very  lack  of  meaning  for  those  who  do  not,  they 
typify  with  a  peculiar  aptness  the  fact  that  after 
all  we  at  home  in  England,  particularly  we  ladies 
of  England  who  live  at  home  in  ease,  know  very 
little  indeed  of  even  what  the  letters  B.E.F.  stand 
for.  We  have  hazy  ideas  on  the  subject.  Vaguely 
we  know,  for  instance,  that  there  are  women,  lots 


A.B.C.  15 

of  women,  working  out  in  France,  though  quite 
at  what,  beyond  nursing,  we  don't  seem  to  know. 
Motor  drivers  ...  of  course,  yes,  we  have  heard 
of  them.  There  is  a  vague  impression  that  they 
are  having  the  time  of  their  lives,  probably  being 
quite  useful  too  ...  but  of  the  technique  of  the 
thing,  so  to  speak,  what  do  we  know?  About  as 
much  as  we  know  when  we  first  hear  the  clouds  of 
initials  rattling  like  shrapnel  about  our  heads  if 
we  go  over  to  France. 

And  if  we  at  home  know  so  little,  how  can 
other  countries  know,  who  have  no  inner  working 
knowledge  of  English  temperaments  and  training 
to  go  upon  as  a  rough  guide  to  at  least  the  prob- 
able trend  of  things?  How  can  we  expect  them 
to  know?  And  yet  knowledge  of  what  every  sec- 
tion of  the  working  community  is  doing  was  never 
so  vital  as  at  the  present  moment,  because  never 
before  has  so  much  of  the  world  been  working 
together  on  the  same  job — and  the  biggest  job  in 
history. 

It  is  always  a  good  thing  to  know  what  other 
folk  are  doing,  even  when  they  are  not  your  sort, 
and  what  they  are  doing  does  not  affect  you,  be- 
cause it  teaches  proportion  and  widens  vision — 
how  much  more  important,  then,  when  what  they 
are  doing  is  what  you  are  doing  too,  or  what  you 
may  yet  come  to  do  ? 

Gentle  reader — and  even  more  especially  un- 
gentle reader — if  in  these  pages  I  occasionally 


16  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

ask  you  to  listen  to  my  own  personal  confession 
both  of  faith  and  of  unfaith — please  realise  that 
it  is  not  because  I  imagine  there  is  any  particular 
interest  in  my  way  of  seeing  things,  but  simply 
because  it  is  only  so  that  I  can  make  you  see  them 
too.  You  are  looking  through  my  window,  that 
is  all,  and  it  is  not  even  a  window  that  I  opened 
for  myself,  but  that  had  to  be  opened  for  m«.  If 
you  will  realise  that  I  went  and  saw  all  I  did  see, 
not  as  myself,  but  as  you,  it  will  give  you  the 
idea  I  am  wishful  to  convey  to  you.  Anything 
I  feel  is  only  valuable  because  my  feeling  of  it 
may  mean  your  feeling  of  it  too.  Therefore, 
when  you  read  "I"  in  these  pages,  don't  say 
"Here's  this  person  talking  of  herself  again  .  .  ." 
say  "Here  am  I,  myself.  This  person  only  saw 
these  things  so  that  I  should  see  them." 

If  you  don't  it  will  be  nine-tenths  my  fault  and 
one-tenth  your  own. 

Just  as  all  the  apparently  endless  combinations 
of  initials  in  France  are  symbols  of  living  realities 
to  those  who  understand  them,  and  of  their  igno- 
rance to  those  who  don't  just  as  the  very  heading 
of  "A.B.C."  which  I  have  given  this  chapter 
typifies  both  those  combinations  of  initials  and  the 
fact  that  you  and  I  are  beginning  at  the  very 
beginning — for  no  one  could  have  been  more 
blankly  ignorant  than  I  when  I  went  over  to 
France — so  the  letter  "I"  whenever  it  occurs  in 
this  book  is  a  symbol  for  You. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  FEVER  CHART  OE  WAR 

"THE  women  are  splendid  .  .  ."  How  tired 
we  are  of  hearing  that,  so  tired  that  we  begin  to 
doubt  it,  and  the  least  hostile  emotion  that  it 
evokes  is  the  sense  that  after  all  the  men  are  so 
much  more  splendid,  so  far  beyond  praise,  that 
the  less  one  says  of  anyone  else  the  better.  That 
sentence  is  dead,  let  us  hope,  fallen  into  the  same 
limbo  as  "Business  as  Usual"  and  the  rest  of  the 
early  war-gags,  but  the  prejudices  it  aroused,  the 
feeling  of  boredom,  have  not  all  died  with  it. 
Words  have  at  least  this  in  common  with  men, 
that  the  evil  that  they  do  lives  after  them. 

Let  me  admit  that  when  those  in  authority  sent 
for  me  to  go  to  France  and  see  what  certain  sec- 
tions of  the  women  there  were  doing,  I  didn't 
want  to  go.  I  told  them  rather  ungraciously  that 
if  they  wanted  the  "sunny-haired-lassies-in-khaki- 
touch"  they  had  better  send  somebody  else.  I  am 
not,  and  never  have  been,  a  feminist  or  any  other 
sort  of  an  '1st,  never  having  been  able  to  divide 
humanity  into  two  different  classes  labelled  "men" 
and  "women."  Also,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  idea  of 

17 


18  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

going  so  far  behind  the  lines  did  not  appeal. 
For  this  there  is  the  excuse  that  in  England  one 
grows  so  sick  of  the  people  who  talk  of  "going  to 
the  Front''  when  they  mean  going  to  some  safe 
chateau  as  a  base  for  a  personally  conducted  tour, 
or — Conscientious  objectors  are  the  worst  sinners 
in  this  latter  class — when  they  are  going  to  sit 
at  canteens  or  paint  huts  a  hundred  miles  or  so 
behind  the  last  line  of  trenches.  The  reaction 
from  this  sort  of  thing  is  very  apt  to  make  one 
say:  "Oh,  France?  There's  no  more  in  being 
in  France  behind  the  lines  than  in  working  in  Eng- 
land." A  point  of  view  in 'which  I  was  utterly 
and  completely  wrong.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
difference,  not  in  any  increased  danger,  but  in 
quite  other  ways,  as  I  shall  show  in  the  place  and 
order  in  which  it  was  gradually  made  apparent 
to  me. 

Also,  no  one  who  has  not  been  at  the  war  knows 
the  hideous  boredom  of  it  ...  a  boredom  that 
the  soul  dreads  like  a  fatal  miasma.  And  if  I  had 
felt  it  in  Belgium  in  those  terrible  grey  first  weeks 
of  her  pain,  when  at  least  one  was  in  the  midst  of 
war,  as  it  was  then,  still  fluid  and  mobile,  still  full 
of  alarums  and  excursions,  with  all  the  suffering 
and  death  immediately  under  one's  eyes  still  a  new 
thing;  if  I  had  felt  it  again,  even  more  strongly, 
when  I  went  right  up  to  the  very  back  of  the 
front  in  the  French  war  zone  for  the  Croix  Rouge, 
in  those  poor  little  hospitals  where  the  stretchers 


THE  FEVER  CHART  OF  WAR    19 

are  always  ready  in  the  wards  to  hustle  the 
wounded  away,  and  where,  in  devastated  land  only 
lately  vacated  by  the  Germans,  I  sat  and  ate  with 
peasants  who  were  painfully  and  sadly  beginning 
to  return  to  their  ruined  homes  and  cultivate  again 
a  soil  that  might  have  been  expected  to  redden  the 
ploughshare,  how  much  the  more  then  might  I 
dread  it,  caught  in  the  web  of  Lines  of  Communi- 
cation. ...  I  feared  that  boredom. 

And  there  was  another  reason,  both  for  my  dis- 
inclination and  my  lack  of  interest.  We  in  Eng- 
land grew  so  tired,  in  the  early  days  of  the  war, 
of  the  fancy  uniforms  that  burst  out  upon  women. 
Every  other  girl  one  met  had  an  attack  of  khaki- 
itis,  was  spotted  as  the  pard  with  badges  and 
striped  as  the  zebra.  Almost  simultaneously  with 
this  eruption  came,  for  the  other  section  of  the 
feminine  community,  reaction  from  it.  We  others 
became  rather  self-consciously  proud  of  our  fem- 
ininity, of  being  "fluffy" — in  much  the  same  way 
that  anti-suffragists  used  to  be  fluffy  when  they 
said  they  preferred  to  influence  a  man's  vote,  and 
that  they  thought  more  was  done  by  charm.  .  .  . 

With  official  recognition  of  bodies  such  as  the 
V.A.D.'s  and  the  even  more  epoch-making  official 
founding  of  the  W.A.A.C.'s,  the  point  of  view 
of  the  un-uniformed  changed.  The  thing  was  no 
longer  a  game  at  which  women  were  making  silly 
asses  of  themselves  and  pretending  to  be  men;  it 
had  become  regular,  ordered,  disciplined  and 


20  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

worthy  of  respect:.  In  short,  uniform  was  no 
longer  fancy  dress. 

But  the  feeling  of  boredom  that  had  been  en- 
gendered stayed  on,  as  these  things  do.  It  is  yet 
to  be  found,  partly  because  there  still  are  women 
who  have  their  photographs  taken  in  a  new  uni- 
form every  week,  but  more  because  of  our  igno- 
rance as  to  what  the  real  workers  are  doing.  And 
like  most  ignorant  people,  I  was  happy  in  my 
ignorance. 

Well,  I  went,  and  am  most  thankful  for  my 
prejudice,  my  disinclination,  my  prevision  of  bore- 
dom. For  without  all  those,  what  would  my  con- 
version be  worth?  Who,  already  convinced  of 
religion,  is  amazed  at  attaining  salvation?  It  is 
to  the  mocker  that  the  miracle  is  a  miracle,  and 
no  mere  expected  sequence  of  nature,  divine  or 
human. 

I  was  often  depressed,  the  wherefore  of  which 
you  will  see,  but  bored,  never.  Thrilled,  ashamed 
for  oneself  that  one  does  so  little — admiring,  crit- 
ical, amused,  depressed,  elated,  all  this  gamut 
and  its  gradations  were  touched,  but  the  string  of 
boredom,  never.  And  the  only  thing  that  worries 
anyone  sent  on  such  a  quest  as  mine,  and  with 
the  inevitable  message  to  deliver  at  the  end  of 
it,  is  that  terrible  feeling  that  no  matter  how 
really  one  feels  enthusiasm,  how  genuine  one's 
conversion,  there  will  always  be  the  murmur  of 
— "Oh,  yes.  ...  Of  course  she  has  to  say  all  that 


THE  FEVER  tHART  OF  WAR    21 

*  »  .  it's  all  part  of  the  propaganda.  She  was 
sent  to  do  it  and  she  has  to  do  it,  whether  she 
really  believes  in  it  or  not.  ,  .  ." 

What  can  one  say?  I  can  only  tell  you,  O  Su- 
perior Person,  that  no  matter  what  I  had  been 
sent  to  do  and  told  to  write  I  not  only  wouldn't 
but  couldn't  have,  unless  I  meant  it.  I  can  only 
tell  you  so,  I  can't  make  you  believe  it.  But  let 
me  also  assure  you  that  I  too  am — or  shall  I  say 
was? — Superior,  that  I  too  have  laughed  the 
laugh  of  sophistication  at  enthusiasm,  that  I  too 
know  enough  to  consider  vehemence  amusing  and 
strenuous  effort  ill-bred,  that  doubtless  I  shall  do 
so  again.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  seems  to  me 
more  ill-bred,  and  that  is  lack  of  appreciation  of 
those  who  are  doing  better  than  oneself. 

Lest  you  should  misunderstand  me  when  I  say 
that  I  didn't  want  to  go  to  France  this  time,  and 
feared  boredom,  and  felt  no  particular  interest 
in  the  work  of  the  women  over  there,  let  me  add 
that  I  was  careful  to  sponge  my  mind  free  of  all 
preconceived  notions,  either  for  or  against,  when 
once  it  was  settled  that  I  should  go.  I  went  with- 
out enthusiasm,  it  is  true,  but  at  least  I  went  with 
a  mind  rigorously  swept  and  garnished,  so  that 
there  might  enter  into  it  visitants  of  either  kind, 
angelic  or  otherwise. 

For  this  has  always  seemed  to  me  in  common 
honesty  a  necessary  part  of  equipment  to  anyone 
going  on  a  special  mission,  charged  with  finding 


22  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

out  things  as  they  are — to  be  free  not  only  of 
prejudice  against,  but  predisposition  for;  and  just 
as  a  juryman,  when  he  is  empanelled,  should  try 
and  sweep  his  mind  bare  of  everything  he  has 
heard  about  the  case  before,  so  should  the  Spe- 
cial Missioner — to  coin  a  most  horrible  phrase — 
make  his  mind  at  once  blank  and  sensitised,  like 
a  photographic  plate,  for  events  to  strike  as  truly 
as  they  may,  with  as  little  help  or  hindrance  from 
former  knowledge  as  possible. 

Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  it  is  probably 
almost  impossible  for  the  original  attitude  to  be 
completely  erased,  however  conscientious  one  is, 
and  that  is  why  I  am  glad  that  my  former  atti- 
tude was,  if  not  inimical,  at  least  very  unenthusias- 
tic,  so  that  I  am  clear  of  the  charge  of  seeing 
things  as  I  or  the  authorities  might  have  wished 
me  to  see  them. 

And,  for  the  first  few  days,  as  always  when 
the  mind  is  plunged  headlong  into  a  new  world, 
though  I  saw  facts,  listened  to  them,  was  im- 
pressed, very  impressed,  by  their  outward  show, 
it  still  remained  outward  show,  the  soul  that  in- 
formed the  whole  evaded  me,  and  for  many  days 
I  saw  things  that  I  only  understood  later  in  view 
of  subsequent  knowledge,  when  I  could  look  back 
and  see  more  clearly  with  the  mind's  eye  what  I 
before  had  seen  with  the  physical.  Yet  even 
the  first  evening  I  saw  something  which,  though 


THE  FEVER  CHART  OF  WAR          23 

only  dimly,  showed  me  a  hint  of  the  spirit  of  the 
whole. 

I  was  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  British  Red 
Cross — which  is  what  the  letters  H.Q.B.R.C.S. 
stand  for — and  I  was  being  shown  some  very  pe- 
culiar and  wonderful  charts.  They  are  secret 
charts,  the  figures  on  which,  if  a  man  is  shown 
them,  he  must  never  disclose,  and  those  figures, 
when  you  read  them,  bring  a  contraction  at  once 
of  pity  and  of  pride  to  the  heart.  For,  on  these 
great  charts,  that  are  mapped  out  into  squares 
and  look  exactly  like  temperature  charts  at  a  hos- 
pital, are  drawn  curves,  like  the  curves  that  show 
the  fever  of  a  patient.  Up  in  jagged  mountains, 
down  into  merciful  valleys,  goes  the  line,  and  at 
every  point  there  is  a  number,  and  that  number  is 
the  number  of  the  wounded  who  were  brought 
down  from  the  trenches  on  such  a  day.  Here,  on 
these  charts,  is  a  complete  record,  in  curves,  of  the 
rate  of  the  war.  Every  peak  is  an  offensive,  every 
valley  a  comparative  lull. 

Sheet  after  sheet,  all  with  those  carefully-drawn 
numbered  curves  zigzagging  across  them,  all  show- 
ing the  very  temperature  of  War.  .  .  . 

With  this  difference — that  on  these  sheets  there 
is  no  "normal."  War  is  abnormal,  and  there  is 
not  a  point  of  these  charts  where,  when  the  line 
touches  it,  you  can  say — "It  is  well." 

As  I  looked  at  these  records  I  began  to  get  a 
different  vision  of  that  tract  of  country  called 


24*  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

"Lines  of  Communication"  which  I  had  come  to 
see.  This,  where  War's  very  pulse  was  noted  day 
by  day,  was  the  stronghold  of  War  himself.  Here 
he  is  nursed,  rested,  fed  with  food  for  the  mouths 
of  flesh  and  blood,  and  food  for  the  mouths  of 
iron;  here,  the  whole  time,  night  and  day,  as 
ceaselessly  as  in  the  trenches,  the  work  goes  on, 
the  work  of  strengthening  his  hands,  and  so  every 
man  and  woman  working  for  that  end  in  "L.  of 
C."  is  fighting  on  our  side  most  surely.  Something 
of  the  hugeness  and  the  importance  of  it  began 
to  show  itself. 

And,  as  regards  that  particular  portion  which  I 
had  come  out  to  see,  I  began  to  get  a  glimmering 
of  that  also,  when  it  was  told  me,  that  of  those 
thousands  of  wounded  I  saw  marked  on  the  charts, 
a  great  proportion  was  convoyed  entirely  by 
women.  There  are  whole  districts,  such  as  the 
Calais  district,  which  includes  many  towns  and 
stations,  where  every  ambulance  running  is  driven 
by  a  woman.  Not  only  the  fever  rate  of  War  is 
shown  on  those  charts,  but  just  as  to  the  seeing 
eye,  behind  any  temperature-chart  in  a  hospital, 
is  the  whole  construction  of  the  great  scheme- 
doctors,  surgeons,  nurses,  food,  drugs,  money,  de- 
votion, everything  that  finds  its  expression,  in  that 
simple  sheet  of  paper  filled  in  daily  as  a  matter  of 
routine,  so  behind  these  charts  of  War's 'tempera- 
ture kept  at  H.Q.  is  the  whole  of  the  complex  or- 
ganisation known  as  the  British  Red  Cross.  And 


THE  FEVER  CHART  OF  WAR         25 

outstanding  even  amongst  so  much  that  is  splendid 
are  certain  bands  of  girls  behind  the  lines,  who, 
not  for  a  month  or  two,  but  year  in,  year  out,  dur- 
ing nights  and  days  when  they  have  known  no 
rest,  have  they,  also,  had  their  fingers  on  the 
pulse  of  war* 


CHAPTER   III 

BACKGROUNDS 

AT  H.Q.B.R.C.S.  the  D.  of  T.  told  me  the 
first  things  for  me  to  see  were  the  F.A.N.Y.'s 
and  the  G.S.V.A.D.'s.  That  is  the  sort  of  sen- 
tence  that  was  shot  at  me  on  my  first  day.  I  have 
told  you  what  H.Q.B.R.C.S.  means;  the  D.  of  T. 
means  Director  of  Transport;  the  F.A.N.Y.  is  the 
First  Aid  Nursing  Yeomanry,  and  the  G.S.V.A.D. 
is  the  General  Service  Voluntary  Aid  Detachment. 
Now  the  V.A.D.  I  had  heard  of,  and  of  its  mem- 
bers, always  called  V.A.D.'s,  but  G.S.V.A.D.  was 
something  new  to  me.  Yet  the  importance  of 
the  distinction,  I  soon  learned,  was  great. 

Four  sets  of  initials  represented  my  chief  ob- 
jectives in  France,  the  F.A.N.Y.'s,  the  V.A.D.'s, 
the  G.S.V.A.D.'s,  and  the  W.A.A.C.'s.  Of  these 
the  former  are  known  as  the  Fannies,  and  the  last 
named  as  the  Waacs,  owing  to  the  tendency  of 
the  eye  to  make  out  of  any  possible  combination 
of  letters  a  word  that  appeals  to  the  ear.  Of  these 
four  bodies,  the  Fannies  and  the  V.A.D.'s  were 
in  existence  before  the  war,  being  amongst  those 

"26  ~" 


BACKGROUNDS  27 

who  listened  to  the  voice  of  Lord  Roberts  crying 
in  the  wilderness.  They  are  all  unpaid,  voluntary 
workers,  and  they  rank  officially  as  officers. 
Among  themselves,  of  course,  they  have  their 
own  officers,  but  socially,  so  to  speak,  every  Fanny 
and  V.A.D.  is  ranked  with  the  officers  of  the 
Army.  But  with  the  G.S.V.A.D.'s  and  the  Waacs 
it  is  not  so.  They  are  paid,  and  are  to  replace 
men;  G.S.V.A.D.'s  work  in  motor  convoys  and  at 
the  hospitals,  as  cooks,  dispensers,  clerks,  etc., 
and  the  Waacs  work  for  the  combatant  service. 
Except  for  their  officers,  who  rank  with- officers 
of  the  Army,  the  members  of  these  two  bodies  are 
considered  as  privates. 

And  as  both  the  Fannies  and  the  Waacs  go  in 
khaki,  and  both  the  V.A.D.'s  and  the  G.S.V.A.D.'s 
in  dark  blue,  it  will  be  seen  that  confusion  is  very 
easy  to  the  uninitiate.  That  is  my  only  excuse 
for  perpetrating  the  worst  Uunder  that  has  prob- 
ably ever  been  committed  in  France.  Taken  to 
tea  at  a  Fanny  convoy  I  committed  the  unspeak- 
able sin  of  asking  whether  they  were  Waacs.  .  .  . 

They  were  very  kind  to  me  about  it,  but  when  I 
eventually  grasped  the  system,  I  saw  it  was  as 
though  I  had  asked  a  Brass  Hat  whether  he  be- 
longed to  the  Salvation  Army.  Yet  when  I  told 
the  sad  tale  of  my  gafe  to  the  members  of 
a  V.A.D.  convoy,  they  only  seemed  to  think  it 
must  have  been  quite  good  for  the  Fannies  .  .  . 
but  somehow  it  wasn't  equally  good  for  them 


28  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

when  I  timidly  asked  whether  they  were 
G.S.V.A.D.'s  .  .  .  though  they  were  also  very 
kind  to  me  about  it. 

The  D.  of  T.  motored  me  over  to  the  Fannies' 
convoy,  on  a  pale  day  of  difficult  sunlight.  Is 
there  anywhere  in  the  world,  I  wondered,  more 
depressing — more  morbid — landscape,  than  that 
round  Calais?  It  weighs  on  the  soul  as  a  fog 
upon  the  senses,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  only 
people  of  such  a  tenacious  gaiety  as  the  French 
or  such  an  independence  from  environment  as  the 
British  could  survive  there  for  long.  I  have  seen 
country  far  flatter  that  was  yet  more  wholesome, 
and  I  loathe  flat  country.  There  is  something  in 
the  perpetual  repetition  of  form  in  the  country 
round  Calais,  the  endless  sameness  of  its  differ- 
ences, that  is  peculiarly  oppressive.  Pearly  skies 
blotted  with  paler  clouds,  endless  rows  of  bare 
poplars,  like  the  skeletons  of  dead  flames,  yel- 
lowish roads  unwinding  for  ever,  acres  of  un- 
broken and  sickly  green,  of  new-turned  earth  of 
an  equally  sad  brown  .  *  .  and  over  all  the  trail 
of  war,  whose  footprint  is  desolation.  The  oc- 
cupation even  of  an  army  of  defence  means  camp 
after  camp;  tin  huts,  wooden  huts,  zinc  roofs; 
hospitals;  barbed  wire;  mud.  And,  amidst  all 
this,  and  the  sudden  reminders  of  more  active 
warfare  in  houses  crumpled  to  a  scatter  of  rubble 
by  a  bomb,  there  are  people  working,  year  in, 


BACKGROUNDS  29 

year  out,  undismayed  by  the  sordid  litter  of 
it.  .  .  .  I 

The  saving  of  it  all  to  the  newcomer,  though 
even  that  must  pall  on  anyone  too  accustomed,  is 
that,  like  Pater's  Monna  Lisa,  upon  this  part  of 
France  "the  ends  of  the  world  are  come"  -  .  . 
(and  who  shall  wonder  if  in  consequence  "her  eye- 
lids are  a  little  weary"?).  Inscrutable  China- 
men, silent  as  shadows,  flashing  their  sudden 
smiles,  even  more  mysterious  than  their  immo- 
bility, turned  from  their  labour  to  watch  the  pass- 
ing of  the  car;  Kaffirs  from  South  Africa,  each 
with  a  white  man's  vote,  voluntarily  enlisted  for 
the  Empire,  swung  along;  vividly  dark  Portuguese, 
clad  in  grey,  came  down  to  their  rest  camps ;  Bel- 
gians trotted  past  with  their  little  tassels  bobbing 
from  their  jaunty  caps.  And,  in  great  droves 
along  the  roads,  or,  sometimes,  more  solitary  in 
the  fields,  the  German  prisoners  stood  at  gaze, 
their  English  escort  shepherding. 

The  first  time  my  companion  told  me  we  were 
coming  on  German  prisoners,  I  shut  my  eyes,  de- 
termined to  open  them  unprejudiced,  with  a  vision 
clear  of  all  preconceptions ;  really,  at  the  bottom 
of  my  heart,  expecting  that  I  should  find  them  ex- 
traordinarily like  anyone  else  .  .  .  But  they  were 
not.  They  were  all  so  like  each  other,  that  by 
the  time  you  had  seen  several  hundreds  you  were 
still  wondering  confusedly  whether  they  were  all 
relations  ,  .  .  even  my  Western  eye  detected 


30  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

more  difference  between  the  types  of  Chinamen 
I  met  upon  the  road  than  in  these  Teutons.  Of 
course,  the  round  brimless  cap  has  something  to 
do  with  it,  as  has  the  close  hair-crop,  but  when 
all  is  said,  how  much  of  a  type  they  are,  how 
amazingly  so,  as  though  they  had  all  been  bred 
to  one  purpose  through  generations!  The  out- 
standing ear,  placed  very  low  on  the  wide  neck, 
the  great  development  of  cheekbones  and  of  the 
jaw  on  a  level  with  the  ears,  and  then  the  sudden 
narrowing  at  the  short  chin  .  .  .  and  the  florid 
bulkiness  of  them.  A  detachment  of  poilus 
swung  past  in  their  horizon  blue,  and  what  a 
different  type  was  flashed  up  against  that  back- 
ground of  square  jowls,  what  a  thin,  nervous, 
wiry  type,  all  animation.  »  .  . 

The  Germans  were  so  exactly  like  all  the  photo- 
graphs of  prisoners  one  has  seen  in  the  daily 
papers  that  it  was  quite  satisfying;  I  remember 
the  same  feeling  of  satisfaction  when  on  first  going 
to  New  England  I  saw  a  frame  house  and  an  old 
man  with  a  goatee  beard  driving  a  spider-wheeled 
buggy,  exactly  like  an  illustration  out  of 
Harper's.  .  .  . 

All  of  which — with  the  exception  of  the  old 
man  out  of  Harper's — is  not  as  irrelevant  as  it 
may  appear,  in  fact,  is  not  irrelevant  at  all,  for 
it  is  these  things,  this  landscape,  these  varied  races, 
this  whole  atmosphere,  which  goes  to  make  life's 
background  for  everyone  quartered  hereabouts, 


BACKGROUNDS  31 

and  it  is  the  background  which,  especially  to  mem- 
ory in  after  years,  makes  so  great  a  part  of  the 
whole. 

As  we  went,  remember,  I  still  knew  nothing 
about  the  work  I  had  come  out  to  see  or  the  lives 
of  those  employed  in  it,  I  could  only  watch  flash- 
ing past  me  the  outward  setting  of  those  lives,  and 
try,  from  the  remarks  of  my  companion,  to  build 
up  something  else.  Yet  what  I  built  up  from  him, 
as  what  I  had  built  up  from  the  talk  at  my  hotel 
the  night  before,  was  more  the  attitude  of  the  men 
towards  the  women  than  the  attitude  of  the  women 
towards  their  life,  though  it  was  none  the  less 
interesting  for  that.  And  here  I  may  as  well 
record,  what  I  found  at  the  beginning — and  I  saw 
no  reason  to  reverse  my  judgment  later  on — and 
that  was  no  trace  of  sex-jealousy  in  any  depart- 
ment whatsoever.  I  only  met  genuine  unemo- 
tional, level-headed  admiration  on  the  part  of  the 
men  towards  the  women  working  amongst  them. 
The  D.  of  T.  was  no  exception,  and  opined  that 
if  the  war  hadn't  done  anything  else,  at  least  it 
had  killed  that  irritating  masculine  "gag"  that 
women  couldn't  work  together.  For  that,  after 
all,  will  always  be  to  some  minds  the  surprise  of 
the  thing — not  that  women  can  work  with  men, 
but  that  they  can  work  together. 

"People  talk  a  lot,"  he  said  reflectively,  "about 
what's  to  happen  after  the  war  .  .  .  when  it's  all 
aver  and  there's  nothing  left  but  to  go  home. 


38  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

What's  going  to  happen  to  all  these  girls,  how 
will  they  settle  down?" 

;<And  how  do  you  think  .  .  .   ?" 

"I  don't  think  there'll  be  any  trouble  whether 
they  marry  or  not.  They  will  have  had  their 
adventure." 

I  looked  at  him  and  thought  what  a  penetrat- 
ing remark  that  was.  Later,  in  view  of  what  I 
came  to  think  and  be  told,  I  wondered  whether 
it  were  true  after  all;  later  still  came  to  what 
seems  to  me  the  solution  of  it,  or  as  much  of  a 
solution  as  that  can  be  which  still  leaves  one  with 
an  "I  wonder.  .  .  ." 

He  told  me  tales  of  the  Fannies  who,  being 
now  under  the  Red  Cross,  came  directly  under 
his  jurisdiction.  He  told  me  of  a  lonely  outpost 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  where  there  was  only 
one  surgeon  and  two  Fannies,  and  how  for  twenty- 
four  hours  they  all  three  worked,  uup  to  the  knees 
in  blood,"  amputating,  tying  up,  bandaging,  with- 
out rest  or  relief.  How  the  whole  of  the  work 
of  the  convoying  of  wounded  for  the  enormous 
Calais  district  was  done  entirely  by  the  girls,  of 
how,  at  this  particular  Fanny  convoy  to  which 
we  were  going,  they  were  raided  practically  every 
fine  night,  and  that  their  camp  was  in  about  the 
"unhealthiest  spot,"  as  regarded  raids,  in  the  dis- 
trict. How  during  the  last  raid  nine  aerial  torpe- 
does fell  around  the  camp,  and  exploded,  and 
one  fell  right  in  the  middle  and  did  not  explode, 


BACKGROUNDS  S3 

or  there  would  have  been  very  little  Fanny  Con- 
voy left  .  .  .  but  how  it  made  a  hole  seven  feet 
deep  and  weighed  a  hundred  and  ten  pounds  and 
stood  higher  than  a  stock-size  Fanny.  And, 
crowning  touch  of  jubilation  to  the  Convoy,  of  how 
the  French  authorities  had  promised  to  present  it 
to  them  after  it  was  cleaned  out  and  rendered  in- 
nocuous, to  their  no  small  contentment.  As  well- 
earned  a  trophy  as  ever  decorated  a  mess- 
room.  .  .  . 

He  talked  very  like  a  nice  father  about  to  show 
off  his  girls  and  back  them  against  the  world. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MY  FIRST  CONVOY 

WE  arrived  on  a  great  day  for  the  Fannies 
— the  famous  Aerial  Torpedo  had  preceded  us  by 
a  bare  hour.  There  it  lay,  on  the  floor  of  the 
mess-room,  reminding  me,  with  its  great  steel 
fins  and  long  rounded  nose,  of  a  dead 
shark.  The  Commandant  showed  it  us  with 
pride,  and  every  successive  Fanny  entering  was 
greeted  with  the  two  words — "It's  come."  The 
D.  of  T.  swore  he  would  have  it  mounted  on 
a  brass  and  mahogany  stand  with  an  engraved 
plate  to  tell  its  history.  Two  strong  Fannies 
reared  it  up,  for  even  empty  its  weight  was  note- 
worthy, and  it  stood  on  its  murderous  nose  with 
its  wicked  fins,  the  solid  steel  of  one  of  them  bent 
and  crumpled  like  a  sheet  of  paper,  above  my 
head.  A  great  trophy,  and  a  hard-earned  one. 

This  was  the  first  camp  I  saw,  and  a  very  good 
one  as  camps  go.  (I  merely  add  that  latter  sen- 
tence because  personally  I  think  any  form  of  com- 
munity life  the  most  terrible  of  hardships.)  It  is 
rather  pathetic  to  see  how,  in  all  the  camps  in 
France,  the  girls  have  managed  to  get  not  only  as 

34; 


MY  FIRST  CONVOY  35 

individual  but  as  feminine  touches  as  possible.  I 
never  saw  a  woman's  office  anywhere  in  France 
that  was  not  a  mass  of  flowers ;  and  window-boxes, 
flower-beds,  basins  of  bulbs,  are  cultivated  every- 
where. Every  office,  too,  though  strictly  business- 
like, has  chintz  curtains  of  lovely  colours.  You 
can  always  tell  a  woman's  office  from  a  man's, 
which  is  a  good  sign,  and  should  hearten  the  pessi- 
mists who  cry  that  this  doing  of  men's  work  will 
de-feminise  the  women. 

The  Commandant  at  this  Fannies'  camp  took 
me  into  her  office,  and  she  and  the  D.  of  T. — 
who  chimed  in  whenever  he  thought  she  was  not 
saying  enough  in  praise  of  his  admired  Fannies 
— told  me  the  rough  outlines  of  the  history  of  the 
body  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  Though 
now  affiliated  to  the  Red  Cross,  they  were  an 
independent  body  before  the  war,  and  when  hos- 
tilities broke  out  were  a  mounted  corps,  with  horse 
ambulances.  They  offered  themselves  to  the  Eng- 
lish authorities,  were  refused,  and  came  out  to 
the  war-zone  and  worked  for  the  Belgians  for 
fourteen  months.  They  ran  a  hospital  in  Calais 
staffed  by  themselves  for  nurses  and  with  Belgian 
doctors  and  orderlies.  Then,  in  the  beginning  of. 
1916  they  offered  to  drive  motor  ambulances  and 
thus  release  Red  Cross  men  drivers,  and  now  they 
are  running,  with  the  exception  of  two  ambu- 
lances for  Chinese,  the  whole  of  the  Calais  dis- 
trict, and  have  released  many  A.S.C.  men  as  well. 


36  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

It  is  a  big  area,  with  many  outlying  camps  where 
there  are  detached  units.  As  a  rule,  there  is  only 
one  girl  to  each  ambulance,  but  in  very  lonely 
spots  the  allowance  is  three  girls  to  two  cars.  At 
St.  Omer  the  authorities  at  first  objected  to  having 
them,  but  now  they  have  taken  over  the  whole  of 
the  Red  Cross  and  A.S.C.  ambulances  there. 

At  this  camp  that  I  saw,  they  have  no  day  or 
night  shifts,  as  there  is  not  much  night  work 
except  during  a  push,  when  everyone  works  night 
and  day  without  more  than  a  couple  of  hours* 
sleep  snatched  with  clothes  on — indeed,  I  heard 
of  a  convoy  where  for  a  fortnight  the  girls  never 
took  off  their  clothes,  but  just  kept  on  with  frag- 
mentary rests.  The  other  occasion  when  there  is 
night  work  is  when  there  is  a  raid.  As  I  have 
said,  the  camp  is  in  a  peculiarly  unhealthy  spot 
for  bombs,  and  until  just  lately  the  girls  had  no 
raid-shelter.  Now  one  has  been  dug  for  them, 
roofed  with  concrete  and  sandbags  and  earth, 
which  would  stand  anything  short  of  a  direct  hit 
from  some  such  pleasant  little  missile  as  is  now  the 
pride  of  the  camp. 

But  at  first,  even  when  the  raid-shelter  was  built, 
there  was  no  telephone  extension  to  it  from  the 
office,  and  therefore  the  Commandant  had  to  stay 
in  the  office  with  one  other  to  take  the  telephone 
calls,  then  had  to  cross  the  open,  in  full  raid,  and 
going  to  the  mouth  of  the  shelter  call  out  the 
names  of  the  girls  whose  turn  it  was  to  drive  the 


MY  FIRST  CONVOY  97 

ambulances.  She  told  it  me  as  exemplifying  the 
spirit  of  the  girls,  that  never  once,  through  all 
the  noise  and  danger,  did  a  girl  falter,  always 
answered  to  her  name  and  came  coolly  and  uncon- 
cernedly up  the  steps  and  went  across  to  her  car. 
But  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  was  as  good  to  sit 
quietly  in  a  matchboard  office  and  await  the  mes- 
sages, to  say  nothing  of  taking  them  across  that 
danger  zone.  Now  an  order  has  gone  forth  that 
the  ambulances  are  not  to  start  till  the  raid  is  over, 
as  they  are  too  precious  to  be  risked. 

It  is  not  a  bad  record,  this  continuous  service  of 
the  Fannies  since  the  outbreak  of  war,  is  it? 

For  remember  it  is  not  work  that  can  be  taken 
up  and  dropped.  You  sign  on  for  six  months  at 
a  time,  and  only  have  two  fortnights  of  leave  in 
the  year.  And  the  girls  sign  on,  again  and  again; 
they  are  nearly  all  veterans  at  it.  And,  comfort- 
able as  the  camp  has  been  made — all  the  necessi- 
ties of  life  are  provided  by  the  War  Office  and 
the  "frills"  by  the  Red  Cross — and  in  spite  of  the 
tiny  separate  cubicles — greatest  blessing  of  all — 
decorated  to  taste  by  the  owner,  in  spite  of  every- 
thing that  can  be  done  to  make  the  girls  happy 
and  keep  them  well — it  is  still  a  picnic.  And  a 
picnic  may  be  all  very  well  for  a  week  or  even 
a  fortnight,  but  a  picnic  carried  on  over  the  years 
is  not  at  all  the  same  thing.  .  .  . 

Certainly  they  all  seemed  very  happy,  and  are 
all  very  well.  Girls  who  go  out  rather  delicate 


40  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

tures,  patterned  chintzes,  bookshelves,  cushions; 
and  above  all,  I  took  an  impression  of  a  certain 
quality  that  I  can  only  describe  as  "stark"  in  the 
girls,  though  that  is  too  bleak  a  word  for  what  I 
mean.  It  is  a  sort  of  splendid  austerity,  that  per- 
vades their  look  and  their  outlook,  that  spiritually 
works  itself  out  in  this  determined  sticking  at  the 
job,  this  avoidance  of  any  emotion  that  interferes 
with  it,  and  in  their  bodies  expresses  itself  in  a 
disregard  for  appearances  that  one  would  never 
have  thought  to  find  in  human  woman.  It  leaves 
you  gasping.  They  come  in,  windblown,  red- 
dened, hot  with  exertion,  after  recklessly  abandon- 
ing their  hands  to  all  the  harsh  treatment  of  a 
car — the  sacrifice  of  the  hands  is  no  small  one, 
and  every  girl  driving  a  car  makes  it — they  come 
in,  toss  their  caps  down,  brush  their  hair  back 
from  their  brow  in  the  one  gesture  that  no  woman 
has  ever  permitted  to  herself  or  liked  in  a  lover 
— and  they  don't  mind. 

It  is  amazing,  that  disregard  for  appearances, 
but  of  course  it  is  partly  explained  by  the  fact 
that  the  natural  tendency  in  young  things  would 
be  to  accentuate  anything  of  that  kind  once  it  was 
discovered  .  .  .  and  for  the  rest — I  really  think 
they  are  too  intent  on  what  they  are  doing  and 
care  too  little  about  themselves  or  what  anyone 
may  be  thinking  of  them.  What  a  blessed  free- 
dom !  .  .  .  This  at  last  is  what  it  is  to  be  as  free 
as  a  man. 


CHAPTER  V 

OtTTPOSTS 

IT  is  a  matter  of  temperament  whether  com- 
munity life,  with  its  enforced  lack  of  individ- 
ualism, or  the  intense  refraction  engendered 
by  the  fact  of  two  people  only  living  together  in 
a  solitude,  is  the  more  trying.  In  the  former 
state  one  may  hope  to  attain  isolation  from  the 
very  superabundance  of  personalities  all  around, 
but  for  the  latter  there  is  at  least  this  to  be  said, 
that  if  the  two  feel  like  leaving  each  other  alone 
there  is  no  distraction  of  noise  and  presences. 
Either  is  a  test  to  persons  who  are  sensitive  about 
their  right  to  solitude,  a  greater  one  than  to  those 
who  mix  happily  with  their  fellow  humans.  Both 
are  to  be  found  in  their  best  expression  among  the 
English  girls  in  France.  From  the  Fanny  convoy 
to  a  lonely  rest  station  was  a  change  that  set  me 
thinking  over  the  problem,  a  problem  in  which  I 
was  a  mere  observer,  but  which  all  these  girls 
had  solved  each  in  her  different  way,  doubtless, 
but  as  far  as  I  could  tell,  to  the  nicest  hair-fine 
edge  of  success. 

My  first  rest  station  was  in  an  out-of-the-way 

41 


42  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

little  place,  bleak  and  treeless,  and  consisted  of 
a  wooden  hut  built  alongside  the  railway  line.  In 
this  hut  lived  the  two  V.A.D.'s  who  ran  the  show 
— which  means  that  they  do  the  cooking  for  them- 
selves and  for  the  trains  which  they  supplied  with 
food,  that  they  dispense  medicines  for  the  pa- 
tients who  appear  daily  at  sick  parade,  and  give 
first  aid  to  accidents,  change  dressings  if  any  cases 
on  a  hospital  train  need  it,  feed  stretcher-bearers 
and  ambulance  drivers,  whose  hours  often  prevent 
them  getting  back  to  billets  for  regular  meals,  take 
in  nurses  who  are  either  arriving  or  leaving  by 
a  night  train  and  would  otherwise  have  nowhere 
to  go,  and  in  their  spare  time — if  you  can  imagine 
them  having  any — grow  their  own  vegetables,  and 
make  bandages,  pillows,  and  other  supplies  for  the 
troops.  Just  two  girls,  voluntary  unpaid  work- 
ers, who  are  nurses,  needle-women,  doctors,  chem- 
ists, gardeners  and  general  servants,  and  whose 
work  can  never  be  done,  or,  when  done,  has  to 
begin  at  once  all  over  again.  No  recreation  ex- 
cept what  they  find  in  books  and  themselves, 
nowhere  to  go,  and  that  perpetual  silhouette  of 
railway  trucks  and  the  hard  edge  of  station  roof 
out  of  the  window,  of  shabby  houses  and  their  own 
tiny  yard  at  the  back,  the  noise  of  shunting  and 
train  whistling  in  their  ears  night  and  day,  and 
with  it  all — worst  touch  of  the  lot — to  have  to  do 
their  own  work  for  themselves. 

To  slave  for  others  all  day  as  long  as  you  can 


OUTPOSTS  43 

come  in  and  find  things  ready  for  you  at  night — 
your  hot  cocoa  in  its  cup  and  your  hot-water  bag 
— that  great  consolation  of  the  women  members 
of  the  B.E.F. — in  your  bed,  is  endurable.  But 
to  .come  in  and  have  no  cocoa  if  you  don't  make 
it  yourself,  no  bag  if  you  don't  see  to  it — that  is 
a  different  affair,  and  that  is  where  these  two 
girls  seemed  to  me  to  touch  a  point  that  of  neces- 
sity the  others  I  had  seen  did  not.  And  now  that 
women  are  doing  men's  work  it  is  to  be  supposed 
they  have  found  out  the  value  of  meals  and  no 
longer  look  on  an  egg  with  one's  tea  as  the  great- 
est height  to  which  nourishment  need  rise,  and 
hence  have  honourably  to  set  about  cooking  for 
themselves — and  there  is  no  woman  but  will  un- 
derstand the  boredom  of  that — the  rations  that  a 
paternal  army  insists  on  showering  upon  them. 
Under  such  circumstances  to  work  is  human,  but 
to  eat  divine. 

As  I  stepped  out  of  the  car  at  the  door,  feel- 
ing terribly  impertinent  at  this  rolling  round  in 
luxury  to  gaze  at  the  work  of  my  betters,  one  of 
the  V.A.D.'s  came  to  the  door  of  the  shanty  to 
greet  us.  She  was  a  fair  creature,  with  windblown 
yellow  hair  and  a  smut  which  kindly  accident  had 
placed  exactly  like  an  old-time  patch  upon  the 
curve  of  one  flushed  cheek.  She  was  wrapped 
in  a  big  pinafore  of  butcher  blue,  and  explained 
that  she  was  "cleaning  up." 

It  all  looked  very  clean  to  me,  certainly  the 


42  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

little  place,  bleak  and  treeless,  and  consisted  of 
a  wooden  hut  built  alongside  the  railway  line.  In 
this  hut  lived  the  two  V.A.D.'s  who  ran  the  show 
— which  means  that  they  do  the  cooking  for  them- 
selves and  for  the  trains  which  they  supplied  with 
food,  that  they  dispense  medicines  for  the  pa- 
tients who  appear  daily  at  sick  parade,  and  give 
first  aid  to  accidents,  change  dressings  if  any  cases 
on  a  hospital  train  need  it,  feed  stretcher-bearers 
and  ambulance  drivers,  whose  hours  often  prevent 
them  getting  back  to  billets  for  regular  meals,  take 
in  nurses  who  are  either  arriving  or  leaving  by 
a  night  train  and  would  otherwise  have  nowhere 
to  go,  and  in  their  spare  time — if  you  can  imagine 
them  having  any — grow  their  own  vegetables,  and 
make  bandages,  pillows,  and  other  supplies  for  the 
troops.  Just  two  girls,  voluntary  unpaid  work- 
ers, who  are  nurses,  needle-women,  doctors,  chem- 
ists, gardeners  and  general  servants,  and  whose 
work  can  never  be  done,  or,  when  done,  has  to 
begin  at  once  all  over  again.  No  recreation  ex- 
cept what  they  find  in  books  and  themselves, 
nowhere  to  go,  and  that  perpetual  silhouette  of 
railway  trucks  and  the  hard  edge  of  station  roof 
out  of  the  window,  of  shabby  houses  and  their  own 
tiny  yard  at  the  back,  the  noise  of  shunting  and 
train  whistling  in  their  ears  night  and  day,  and 
with  it  all — worst  touch  of  the  lot — to  have  to  do 
their  own  work  for  themselves. 

To  slave  for  others  all  day  as  long  as  you  can 


OUTPOSTS  43 

come  in  and  find  things  ready  for  you  at  night — 
your  hot  cocoa  in  its  cup  and  your  hot-water  bag 
— that  great  consolation  of  the  women  members 
of  the  B.E.F. — in  your  bed,  is  endurable.  But 
to  .come  in  and  have  no  cocoa  if  you  don't  make 
it  yourself,  no  bag  if  you  don't  see  to  it — that  is 
a  different  affair,  and  that  is  where  these  two 
girls  seemed  to  me  to  touch  a  point  that  of  neces- 
sity the  others  I  had  seen  did  not.  And  now  that 
women  are  doing  men's  work  it  is  to  be  supposed 
they  have  found  out  the  value  of  meals  and  no 
longer  look  on  an  egg  with  one's  tea  as  the  great- 
est height  to  which  nourishment  need  rise,  and 
hence  have  honourably  to  set  about  cooking  for 
themselves — and  there  is  no  woman  but  will  un- 
derstand the  boredom  of  that — the  rations  that  a 
paternal  army  insists  on  showering  upon  them. 
Under  such  circumstances  to  work  is  human,  but 
to  eat  divine. 

As  I  stepped  out  of  the  car  at  the  door,  feel- 
ing terribly  impertinent  at  this  rolling  round  in 
luxury  to  gaze  at  the  work  of  my  betters,  one  of 
the  V.A.D.'s  came  to  the  door  of  the  shanty  to 
greet  us.  She  was  a  fair  creature,  with  windblown 
yellow  hair  and  a  smut  which  kindly  accident  had 
placed  exactly  like  an  old-time  patch  upon  the 
curve  of  one  flushed  cheek.  She  was  wrapped 
in  a  big  pinafore  of  butcher  blue,  and  explained 
that  she  was  "cleaning  up." 

It  all  looked  very  clean  to  me,  certainly  the 


44  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

little  dispensary,  the  room  into  which  you  first 
walked,  was  spotless,  everything  ranged  ready  for 
Sick  Parade,  glass,  white  enamel,  metal,  shining 
in  the  shaft  of  sunlight  which  came  palely  in  at 
the  open  doorway.  To  the  left  was  the  kitchen, 
stone-floored,  fitted  with  an  English  stove,  to  the 
right  the  tiny  slip  of  sitting-room  from  which 
opened  the  two  still  narrower  little  bedrooms. 
That  was  all. 

This  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  two  girls 
live,  but,  as  usual,  they  have  done  everything  that 
is  possible  with  it.  Brilliant  curtains,  pictures, 
rows  of  books — the  rest  stations  keep  up  a  sort  of 
circulating  library,  exchanging  their  books  from 
time  to  time  amongst  themselves  by  way  of  the 
ambulance  trains,  which  are  thus  supplied  with  a 
library  also — and  charming  pottery  ranged  along 
the  shelves.  The  rest  stations  rather  make  a 
point  of  their  pottery.  It  is  their  tradition  always 
to  drink  out  of  bowls  instead  of  cups,  and  their 
plates  have  the  triumphant  Gallic  cock,  in  bravery 
of  prismatic  plumage,  striding  across  them. 

After  I  had  said  good-bye  to  the  golden  girl 
of  the  inspired  smut,  I  went  on  to  a  bigger  rest 
station  at  a  terminus  and  was  in  time  to  lunch 
there.  It  was  a  more  sophisticated  affair  than 
that  which  I  had  left,  yet  when  this  rest  station 
was  started,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  its  habi- 
tation was  a  railway  truck — for  the  romance  of 
which  some  of  those  who  were  there  in  that  first 


OUTPOSTS  &5 

rush,  when  you  were  never  off  your  feet  for 
twenty-four  hours  at  a  time,  sometimes  sigh.  .  . 

Now  part  of  the  station  buildings  has  been  par- 
titioned off  for  them,  and  there  is  a  fairly  big 
dispensary,  with  a  bed  for  dressings  and  accident 
cases,  of  which  quite  a  number  are  brought  in,  a 
kitchen,  a  little  dining-room  where  all  the  furni- 
ture is  home-made — deep  chairs  out  of  barrels  and 
the  like — and  behind  that  a  big  storeroom, 
crammed  from  floor  to  ceiling  with  stores.  The 
girls  do  not  sleep  here,  but  in  billets  at  the  town, 
but  they  have  to  provide  meals  at  any  hour  and 
meet  all  the  ambulance  trains  with  food  and  extra 
comforts. 

We  had  a  very  good  lunch,  of  stew  and  onions 
and  potatoes,  big  bowls  of  steaming  coffee,  and 
a  pudding  with  raisins,  all  cooked  by  one  of  the 
V.A.D.  domestic  staff,  who  always  had  to  slip  into 
her  place  last  to  eat  it,  and  get  out  of  it  first  to 
serve  the  next  course.  I  saw  only  these  two  rest 
stations,  each  typical  in  its  way,  the  one  of  the 
isolated  and  the  other  of  the  central  kind,  but  they 
are  scattered  up  and  down  the  line,  varying  in 
character  according  to  the  needs  of  the  particular 
place. 

At  one,  for  instance,  there  is  a  small  ward 
attached,  where  slight  cases,  not  bad  enough  to 
be  admitted  to  the  hospital,  and  yet  requiring  some 
attention,  can  be  kept  for  a  day  or  two,  thus 
possibly  avoiding  serious  illness.  Near  to  this 


46  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

same  one  is  a  Labour  Battalion,  many  of  the  men 
from  which  are  out-patients  whose  medical  inspec- 
tion is  held  at  the  rest  station.  Near  another  is 
a  large  convalescent  camp,  the  O.C.  of  which 
looks  to  the  V.A.D.'s  of  the  rest  station  for  help 
in  various  ways. 

At  them  all  there  is  always  the  work  of  feed- 
ing the  stretcher-bearers  and  ambulance  drivers, 
who  in  times  of  pressure  have  to  spend  many 
hours  at  their  work  of  unloading  the  trains  with- 
out any  chance  of  getting  a  regular  meal.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  rest  stations,  when  the  am- 
bulance trains  were  often  merely  improvised,  food 
and  dressings  had  to  be  provided  for  all  the 
wounded  on  board,  but  now,  when  the  working  of 
the  British  Red  Cross  is  as  near  perfection  as 
any  human  organisation  well  can  be,  the  men  have 
every  care  taken  of  them  on  the  perfectly-fitted 
trains.  Yet  there  is  much  attention  given  to  the 
sick  and  wounded  of  every  nation  who  come  in  on 
the  trains,  attention  chiefly  consisting  of  the  giv- 
ing of  extra  comforts — cocoa,  lemons,  shirts,  slip- 
pers, cigarettes,  cushions — and  the  re-dressing  of 
wounds,  while  a  great  deal  as  well  as  feeding  them 
is  done  for  the  staffs  of  the  trains,  for  whom,  be- 
sides the  lending  library,  an  exchange  of  gramo- 
phone records  and  of  laundry  has  been  arranged. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  thing  to  note  about 
the  rest  stations  is  that  they  are  one  of  the  few 
points  of  contact  beween  the  members  of  the 


OUTPOSTS  47 

B.E.F.  and  the  French  population.  Our  camps, 
our  hospitals,  our  motor  convoys,  are  all  little 
Englands  in  themselves,  but  every  morning  to 
the  sick  parade  of  these  rest  stations  come  not 
only  the  local  V.A.D.'s  and  ambulance  drivers, 
but  the  French  civilian  population  as  well,  and 
in  greater  and  greater  numbers.  Accidents  are 
brought  to  a  rest  station  very  often  in  prefer- 
ence to  being  taken  anywhere  else,  and  anxious 
mothers  bring  Jean  or  Marie  when  a  mysterious 
ailment  shows  itself  in  untoward  spot  or  sneeze. 
The  Gallic  cock  is  more  than  a  decoration  as  he 
strides  across  the  pottery  of  the  rest  stations — 
he  is  become  a  symbol  as  well. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WAACS :  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES 

WHEN  I  spoke  at  H.Q.  of  the  depression  I 
found  in  all  the  landscape  around  and  of  its  pe- 
culiar morbid  quality,  nearly  everyone  assured  me 

that  I  should  find  the  country  round  E , 

whither  I  was  going,  far  more  depressing.  "There 
is  nothing  but  sand  dunes  and  huts,  miles  of  huts, 
hospitals  and  camps  and  so  on.  .  .  ."  It  did  not 
sound  very  delightful. 

But  to  differing  vision,  differing  effects,  and 

personally,  I  loved  E ;  terrible  as  cities  of 

huts  generally  are,  here  they  seemed  to  me  to 
have  lost  much  of  their  terror.  I  loved  the  long 
rippling  lines  of  dunes,  the  decoration  of  hun- 
dreds of  tall  pines  that  came  partly  against  the 
sandy  pallor,  partly  against  the  vivid  steely  blue 
of  the  river  beyond,  I  loved  the  bare  woods  we 
passed  all  along  the  road,  the  trees  still  not  per- 
ceptibly misted  with  buds  but  giving,  with  their 
myriads  of  fine  massed  twigs,  an  effect  of  clouded 
wine-colour.  And  was  there  ever  such  a  coun- 
tryside for  magpies?  Superstition  dies  before 
their  numbers,  helpless  to  count  them,  so  far  are 

48 


H.    M.   THE   QUEEX    INSPECTING   A   "VAtt"   DOMESTIC    STAFF 


•  v 


A  V.   A.   D.   MOTOR  CONVOY 


WAAC   GARDENERS   AT   WORK    IN   THE    CEMETERY 


WREATHS   FROM    MOTHERS   OF   THE    FALLEN 


WAACS:  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES   49 

they  beyond  the  range  of  sorrow,  mirth,  mar- 
riage and  birth,  at  any  one  glance.  Everywhere 
through  those  winey  woods  there  went  up  the 
fanlike  flutter  of  black-and-white,  the  only  posi- 
tive notes  in  all  the  delicate  universe,  compact 
of  pearly  skies,  dim  purples  of  earth,  and  pale 
irradiation  of  the  sun. 

On  the  roads  there  was  the  usual  medley  of 
the  races  of  the  world,  added  to  as  we  neared 

E by  Canadian  nurses  in  streaming  white 

veils  and  uniforms  of  brilliant  blue,  and  also— 
for  surely  the  most  delightful  of  created  bless- 
ings may  rank  as  a  race  of  the  world — by  the 
glossy  golden  war-dogs,  who  also  have  their 
training  camp  near  here,  and  take  their  walks 
abroad,  waving  their  plumy  tails  and  jumping 
up  on  their  masters,  like  any  leisured  dog  at  home. 

But — to  my  sorrow — I  was  not  sent  to  look  at 
war-dogs,  and  so  had  to  pass  by  and  leave  the 
wagging  plumes  behind.  I  had  several  ends  in 

view  at  E ;  I  had  to  see  the  large  Waac  camp 

there,  its  outflung  ramifications,  and  the  work  that 
the  Waacs  did  in  the  men's  camps ;  and  I  had  to 
see  the  V.A.D.  Motor  Convoy,  at  which  I  was 
to  spend  a  night.  Incidentally,  I  had  high  hopes 
of  getting  permission  to  go  out  in  an  ambulance 
with  the  latter,  though  it  is  against  the  most  sacred 
Army  Orders  for  anyone  not  in  uniform  to  be 
seen  upon  an  ambulance.  Here  I  may  say  that 
the  permission  was  granted  by  a  powerful  indi- 


50  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

vidual  known  as  the  D.D.M.S.,  though  he  men- 
tioned that  being  shot  at  dawn  was  the  least  pain- 
ful thing  that  ought  to  happen  to  me  for  doing  it. 

I  was  going  first  to  the  Waac  headquarters,  to 
see  the  Area  Controller,  who  corresponds  to  an 
Area  Commandant  in  the  V.A.D.'s  and  whose 
rank  approximates  to  that  of  a  Major.  She  is 
supreme  in  her  area  and  only  the  Chief  Control- 
ler of  the  Waacs  is  above  her.  Below  her  are 
her  Unit  Administrators,  who  are  in  charge  of 
units  and  approximate  to  captains,  and  have  their 
Deputy  and  Assistant  Administrators  whom  for 
convenience1  sake  we  can  classify  as  lieutenants 
and  second  lieutenants. 

This  is  the  place  to  say  frankly  that  I  had  heard 
— as  had  we  all — "the  rumors"  that  were  flying 
round  about  the  Women's  Army.  They  "weren't 
a  success,"  .  .  .  "it  had  been  found  to  be  un- 
workable .  .  ."  and,  as  reason,  a  more  specific 
charge.  Need  I  say  what  that  specific  charge 
was?  What  is  it  that  always  jumps  to  the  mind 
of  the  average  materialist?  The  most  innocent 
thing  in  the  world — in  itself — and  the  cause  of 
most  of  the  scandal  since  the  dawn  of  civilisation. 
A  Baby. 

There  is  a  certain  type  of  mind  which  always 
jumps  to  babies,  apparently  looking  on  them  as 
the  Churchmen  of  the  Middle  Ages  looked  on 
women — as  the  crowning  touch  of  evil  in  an  evil 
world.  If  you  remember,  there  was  great  agita- 


WAACS:  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES   51 

tion  in  certain  quarters  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  over  "War-Babies."  They  were  going  to 
inundate  the  country,  they  were  going  to  be  a  very 
serious  proposition  indeed.  The  Irish  question, 
Conscription,  Conscientious  Objectors,  were  going 
to  be  as  nothing  to  the  matter  of  the  War-Babies. 
It  is  perhaps  from  some  points  of  view  a  pity  that 
the  War-Babies  didn't  materialize,  but  that  of 
course  is  another  question  altogether.  "Passons 
oultre,"  as  the  great  Master  of  delicate — and 
indelicate — situations  used  to  say. 

The  point  as  regards  the  Women's  Army  is  that 
the  whole  of  the  agitation  against  it  is  a  libel,  and 
one  which  decent  people  should  be  ashamed  to  cir- 
culate even  as  supposititious.  Quite  apart  from 
the  evidence  of  my  own  ears  and  eyes,  at  various 
camps  I  was  supplied  with  the  official  statistics  for 
the  Women's  Army  from  March  of  1917  to  Feb- 
ruary of  1918.  And  of  these  women  who  "have 
not  been  a  success,"  as  the  mischievous  gossip  has 
had  it,  how  many  do  you  think  have  proved  fail- 
ures out  of  six  thousand?  In  the  time  mentioned 
fourteen  have  been  sent  home  for  incompetence, 
without  any  slur  on  their  characters;  twenty-three 
for  lack  of  discipline,  mostly  in  the  early  days 
when  the  girls  did  not  realise  what  being  in  the 
Army  meant  and  thought  if  they  wanted  to  go  to 
any  particular  place  there  was  no  reason  why 
they  shouldn't;  and  fifteen  who  were  already 
enceinte  before  leaving  England  and  which  even 


52  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

the  most  censorious  can  hardly  lay  to  the  charge 
of  the  B.E.F.  And  of  all  that  six  thousand  what 
percentage  do  you  suppose  has  had  to  be  sent  back 
for  what  is  euphemistically  known,  I  believe,  as 
"getting  into  trouble,"  since  landing  in  France? 
No  percentage  at  all,  if  I  may  express  myself  thus 
unmathematically,  but  exactly  five  cases.  Five, 
out  of  six  thousand.  Compare  that  with  the 
morality  of  any  village  in  England,  or  anywhere 
else  in  the  world,  and  then  say,  if  you  dare  to  be 
so  obviously  dishonest,  that  there  is  any  reason 
why  the  Women's  Army  should  be  aspersed. 

These  statistics  were  given  to  me  at  the  office 
of  the  Area  Controller,  and  later  repeated  at  the 
Women's  Army  H.Q.  by  the  Controller  in  Chief, 
but  on  that  first  sunny  morning  amongst  the  pines 
and  pale  golden  sand-dunes  it  was  naturally  the 
human  and  individual  side  rather  than  any  of 
figures,  however  startling,  that  claimed  the  mind 
the  most.  For  one  thing,  I  had  the  actual  or- 
ganisation and  attributes  of  the  Women's  Army 
to  learn.  I  knew  nothing.  The  actual  working 
knowledge,  apart  from  impressions  and  things 
learnt  only  by  seeing  them,  that  I  gathered  dur- 
ing the  days  I  spent  at  various  Waac  centres  is 
as  follows: 

The  Women's  Army  differs  from  the  F.A.N.Y. 
and  the  V.A.D.  in  being  a  paid  instead  of  a  volun- 
tary body,  in  being  directly  under  the  Army,  not 
the  Red  Cross,  and  in  its  members  being  ranked 


WAACS:  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES    50 

as  privates.  But  it  also  differs  from  the  G.S.V.A. 
D.,  though  that  too  is  paid  and  its  members  rank 
as  privates.  The  G.S.V.A.D.  is  far  more 
"mixed";  its  members  are  of  all  classes  and  edu- 
cations, and  are  drafted  off  for  work  accordingly, 
but  the  bulk  of  the  Waacs  are  working  girls  and 
do  manual  labour,  such  as  gardening,  cooking, 
baking,  scrubbing,  etc.,  though  there  are  amongst 
them  girls  of  a  more  specialised  education  who 
are  signallers  and  clerks.  The  officers,  of  course, 
are  women  of  education  who  have  undergone  a 
stiff  training  and  been  carefully  selected  for  the 
posts  they  fill.  For,  as  will  be  seen,  nearly  every- 
thing depends  upon  the  Waac  officers;  they  have 
certainly  a  greater  power  for  good  or  harm  than 
the  officers  in  the  Regular  Army,  and  never  were 
both  the  force  and  danger  of  personality  more 
acutely  illustrated  than  in  the  position  of  the 
Waac  leaders. 

A  Unit  Administrator  has  to  know  individually 
every  girl  in  her  camp,  though  there  may  be  sev- 
eral hundreds.  She  has  to  blend  with  her  abso- 
lute authority  a  maternal  interest  and  supervision. 
While  she  has  no  power  to  say  whom  a  girl  shall 
or  shall  not  "walk  out"  with,  she  yet  makes  it  her 
business  to  know  what  choice  of  men  friends  the 
girl  makes  and  to  influence,  as  far  as  she  can,  that 
choice  towards  discretion.  She  must  not  nag  but 
must  inculcate  by  subtle  methods  a  realisation  of 
what  is  due  to  the  uniform,  a  sense  of  the  "idea," 


54  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

the  "symbol,1*  of  it.  She  does  not  actually  say  to 
a  girl  that  she  is  not  to  walk  arm  in  arm  with  a 
Tommy  or  pin  her  collar  with  her  paste  brooch, 
but  she  conveys  to  her  that  these  things  are  not 
done  in  the  best  uniforms  .  .  .  And  the  girl  learns 
with  incredible  rapidity.  A  thing  is  Not  Done — 
what  a  potency  in  those  words;  in  that  attitude 
of  mind!  It  probably  influenced  the  earliest  sav- 
ages in  the  manner  of  wearing  their  cowries. 

After  all,  the  whole  idea  of  uniform,  of  dis- 
tinguishing one  caste  from  another  by  bits  of  dif- 
ferent coloured  cloth,  is  based  on  the  instinct 
for  being  superior.  Was  it  not  John  Selden  who 
said  something  to  the  effect  that  our  rulers  have 
always  tried  to  make  themselves  as  different  from 
us  as  possible?  Of  course  they  have,  and  it  is  ex- 
actly the  same  thing  which  the  wise  Pope  Gregory 
VII  had  in  mind  when  he  definitely  crystallised 
the  measures  for  celibacy  of  the  priesthood,  and 
it  is  exactly  the  same  thing  which  puts  the  police- 
man into  a  dark  blue  uniform  and  a  helmet  before 
he  can  so  much  as  stop  a  milkcart.  A  policeman 
in  plain  clothes  is  a  dethroned  monarch.  Noth- 
ing in  the  nature  of  controlling  others  was  ever 
done  without  dressing  up.  The  marvel  is  that 
for  so  many  centuries  the  principle  should  have 
been  confined  to  the  masculine  sex,  when  it  has 
such  an  obvious  appeal  to  the  feminine. 

This  principle  when  carried  a  step  further  and 
applied  to  those  controlled,  by  giving  them  also 


WAACS:  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES    55 

the  sensation  of  being  different  from  the  rest  of 
the  world,  results  in  that  spirit  called  esprit  de 
corps,  which  is  really  esprit  de  tuni forme.  To- 
wards the  rest  of  the  world  the  uniformed  are 
proud  of  being  different,  amongst  themselves 
proud  of  being  alike,  and  the  more  alike,  so  to 
speak,  the  aliker.  It  is  not  a  thing  to  treat  scorn- 
fully, for  it  has  the  whole  of  symbolism  behind 
it.  That  which  makes  a  man  cheerfully  die  for 
a  piece  of  bunting  which,  prosaically  speaking,  is 
only  a  piece  of  bunting  that  happens  to  be  dyed 
red,  white,  and  blue,  is  part  of  this  same  spirit. 
Dull  of  soul  indeed  must  he  be  who  can  look  with- 
out a  profound  emotion  on  the  tattered  "colours" 
of  a  regiment,  and  yet  it  is  only  the  idea,  the 
symbol,  that  makes  these  things  what  they 
are.  .  .  . 

i  And  for  most  of  these  girls,  remember,  it  is 
the  first  time  they  have  had  a  symbol  held  before 
them.  .  .  .  We  of  the  upper  classes  are  brought 
up  with  many  reverences — for  our  superiors,  our 
elders,  for  traditions,  but  the  classes  which  for 
want  of  a  better  word  I  must  call  "lower" — so 
please  do  not  cavil  at  me  for  doing  so  or  attribute 
false  meanings — are  for  the  most  part  brought  up 
to  think  themselves  as  good  as  anyone  else,  and 
their  "rights"  the  chief  thing  in  life;  while  owing 
to  the  unfortunate  curriculum  of  our  Board 
Schools,  which  does  not  insist  nearly  enough  on 
history  as  the  fount  of  the  present  and  of  all  that 


56  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

is  great  and  good  in  the  past,  they  are  left  without 
those  standards  of  impersonal  enthusiasms  and 
imaginative  daring — which  should  be  the  right- 
ful inheritance  of  us  all. 

These  girls  are  now  given  an  abstract  idea  to 
live  up  to,  no  mere  standard  of  expediency,  but 
an  idea  that  appeals  to  the  imagination.  And  how 
magnificently  they  are  responding  those  statistics 
show,  but  more  still  does  the  attitude  of  all  the 
officers  and  men  who  have  to  do  with  them.  I 
talked  with  all  ranks  on  the  subject,  and  never 
once  did  I  me£t  with  anything  but  admiration  and 
enthusiasm.  The  men  are  touchingly  grateful  to 
them  and  value  their  work  and  their  companion- 
ship. For,  very  wisely,  the  girls  are  encouraged 
to  be  friends  with  the  men,  are  allowed  to  walk 
out  with  them,  to  give  teas  and  dances  for  them 
in  the  Y.W.C.A.  huts,  and  to  go  to  return  parties 
given  by  the  men  in  the  Y.M.C.A.  huts.  It  is, 
of  course,  easy  to  sneer  at  the  ideal  which  is  held 
before  the  men,  of  treating  these  girls  as  they 
would  their  sisters,  but  the  fact  remains  that  they 
very  beautifully  do  so. 

Another  point  to  be  remembered  is,  that,  far 
from  these  girls  being  exposed  to  undue  tempta- 
tion, the  great  majority  of  them  have  never  been 
so  well  looked  after  as  now.  They  are  mostly 
girls  of  a  class  that  knows  few  restrictions,  who, 
with  the  exception  of  those  previously  in  domestic 
service,  have  always  had  what  they  call  their 


WAACS:  RUMOURS  AND  REALITIES    57 

"evenings,"  when  they  roamed  the  streets  or  went 
to  the  cinemas  with  their  "boys." 

Now  every  Waac  has  to  be  in  by  eight,  can  go 
nowhere  without  permission,  is  carefully  though 
unostentatiously  shepherded,  and  is  provided  with 
healthy  recreation,  such  as  Swedish  exercises, 
Morris  dancing,  hockey,  and  the  like.  In  short, 
she  is  now  looked  after  and  guarded  as  young 
girls  of  the  educated  classes  are  normally. 

And  these  are  the  girls,  good,  honest,  hard- 
working creatures,  who  have  been  maligned  in 
whispers  and  giggles  up  and  down  the  country. 
It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  they  are  natu- 
rally very  indignant  over  it,  that  the  parents  of 
many  write  to  them  agitatedly  to  demand  if  it's 
all  true  and  to  beg  them  to  come  back,  and  that 
sometimes,  when  they  are  home  on  leave,  instead 
of  their  uniforms  bringing  them  the  respect  and 
honour  they  deserve  and  which  every  man  over- 
seas accords  to  them,  they  are  subjected  to  insult 
from  people  who  have  nothing  better  to  do  than 
to  betray  to  the  world  the  pitiable  condition  of 
their  own  nasty  minds. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  BROWN  GRAVES 

WHEN  first  one  has  dealings  with  the  Waacs 
and  their  officers,  one  imagines  distractedly  that 
one  has  fallen  among  Royalty.  This  is 
because  the  word  "Ma'am"  is  always  used  by  a 
Waac  when  speaking  to  another  of  superior  rank, 
till  you  very  nearly  find  yourself  bobbing.  Later 
this  impression  is  strengthened  by  the  memory  for 
faces  which  every  Waac  officer  displays  in  a  man- 
ner one  has  always  been  taught  to  consider  truly 
royal.  It  is  only  among  themselves  than  any 
titles  exist;  to  the  outside  world,  even  the  Army 
officers,  each  Waac  officer  is  mere  "Mrs."  or 
"Miss,"  whichever  she  may  chance  to  be.  The 
"putting  on  of  frills"  has  been  avoided  with  ex- 
traordinary dexterity;  there  is  just  enough  ritual 
to  make  the  girls  feel  they  belong  to  an  organised 
body,  without  the  enemy  being  given  occasion  to 
blaspheme  by  saying  that  women  like  playing  at 
being  men.  In  France,  though  not  in  England, 
the  girls  salute  their  officers,  as  this  helps  them  to 
get  at  the  "idea"  of  the  thing — that  feeling  of 
being  part  of  an  ordered  whole,  which  is  so  valu- 
able. 

68 


THE  BROWN  GRAVES  59 

In  the  matter  of  uniforms,  someone  at  trie  War 
Office,  or  wherever  these  things  are  thought  out, 
has  really  had  a  rather  charming  series  of  inspira- 
tions. At  first  the  women  wore  the  same  badges 
as  denote  the  ranks  of  soldiers,  but  a  paternal — 
or  should  one  not  almost  say  maternal? — Govern- 
ment evidently  thought  that  not  feminine  enough, 
and  now  the  badges  of  varying  rank  are  roses, 
fleur-de-lys  and  laurel  leaves,  a  touch  which  would 
have  delighted  old  Andrew  Marvell. 

One  of  the  chief  activities  of  the  Waacs  is  cook- 
ing, and  when,  escorted  by  the  D.D.M.S.,  whom 
I  have  before  mentioned,  I  arrived  at 'the  little 
wooden  office  amidst  the  pines,  it  was  to  hear  a 
one-sided  conversation  on  the  telephone  between 
the  Area  Controller  and  various  great  ones  of  the 
earth  who  were  frantically  ringing  up  for  cooks. 
Also  a  new  Officers'  Club  for  senior  officers  want- 
ing a  rest  from  the  firing  line  is  just  being  opened 

near  E ,  and  it  is  to  be  staffed  by  Waacs  and 

the  cook  is  to  be.  of  the  very  best.  Punch's  im- 
mortal advice  as  to  the  treatment  of  husbands  is 
not  forgotten  by  the  Waac  controllers  when  ques- 
tions of  this  kind  arise. 

After  talk  of  cooks  came  the  seeing  of  cooks,  in 
a  big  camp  and  Small  Arms  school  near.  Kitch- 
ens are  kitchens  arid  mess-rooms  mess-rooms 
everywhere  you  go,  and  beyond  a  general  impres- 
sion of  extreme  cleanliness,  an  extraordinarily  ap- 
pealing smell  of  stew,  and  the  sight  of  great 


60  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

branches  of  mimosa  set  about  the  long  mess  tables, 
there  is  nothing  of  particular  interest  to  describe. 
The  point  is  that  all  the  preparing  and  the  serv- 
ing of  food  in  this  great  camp  for  officers  and 
men  is  done  by  women  and  that  all  the  male  crea- 
tures are  unreservedly  jubilant  at  the  change. 
The  C.O.  expressed  his  hope  that  after  the  war  the 
W.A.A.C.  would  continue  as  a  permanent  part  of 
the  Army,  while  a  sergeant  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  the  women  managed  to  introduce  so  much 
more  variety  into  the  preparation  of  the  food  than 
the  men  had  done.  Also,  he  added  that  they 
wasted  much  less. 

In  every  kitchen  there  is  a  forewoman  cook — 
there  are  these  forewomen  in  every  department 
of  the  work  of  the  women,  and  they  correspond 
rather  to  the  "noncoms"  among  the  men.  At 
present  they  are  distinguished  by  a  bronze  laurel 
leaf  and  always  have  their  own  mess-room  and 
sitting-room  as  distinct  from  the  rest  of  the  girls, 
but  it  is  rather  an  influence  than  an  authority  which 
is  vested  in  them,  though  the  advisability  of  defi- 
nitely endowing  them  with  more  of  the  latter  is 
being  considered.  They  "answer,"  as  the  rest  of 
the  Waac  machinery  does,  extremely  well. 

An  interesting  point  about  army  kitchens,  as 
they  are  run  nowadays,  is  that  after  the  amount 
of  fats  necessary  to  the  cooking  has  been  put 
aside,  the  rest  is  poured  into  great  tins,  graded 
according  to  its  quality,  and  sent  home  for  muni- 


THE  BROWN  GRAVES  61 

tions.  We  are  getting  things  down  to  the  fine 
edge  of  no-waste  at  last,  and  the  women  are  help- 
ing to  do  it. 

At  another  camp  I  found  the  C.O.  most  anxious 
for  the  women  to  start  a  Mending  Factory — it 
would  be  such  a  help  to  the  men,  who,  unlike  sail- 
ors, are  not  adept  at  the  repairing  of  their  clothes. 
Also  a  laundry,  he  intimated,  would  be  necessary 
really  to  round  off  the  scheme  satisfactorily.  Both 
these  are  thoroughly  sound  suggestions  that  may 
yet,  let  us  hope,  come  to  something,  though  they 
would  be  in  a  sense  breaking  new  ground,  as  the 
idea  of  the  Waacs  is  that  they  actually  replace 
men.  Each  cook  releases  one  man,  while  among 
the  clerks  at  present  the  ratio  is  four  women  to 
three  men.  And  there  are  already  six  thousand 
Waacs  in  France  .  .  .  Does  not  this  give  the  ob- 
vious reason  why  slanders,  started  by  enemy 
agents,  have  been  busy  trying  to  drive  the 
Women's  Army  out  of  France? 

Every  Waac  who  goes  to  France  is  like  the 
pawn  who  attains  the  top  of  the  chessboard  and 
is  exchanged  for  a  more  valuable  piece.  She  sends 
a  fighting  man  to  his  job  by  taking  on  the  jobs  that 
are  really  a  woman's  after  all.  For  is  it  not 
woman's  earliest  job  to  look  after  man? 

She  looks  after  him  to  keep  him  well  and  strong, 
she  looks  after  him  when  he  is  ill — and  now,  in 
France,  she  looks  after  the  gallant  dead,  who  are 
lying  in  the  soil  for  which  they  fought.  Between 


62  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

the  pines  and  the  gleaming  river  with  its  sandy 
shoals  are  the  rows  of  crosses,  sparkling,  the  ash 
grey  wood  of  them,  in  the  effulgence  of  the  spring 
light,  making  hundreds  of  points  of  brightness 
above  the  earth  still  brown  and  bare,  that  soon, 
under  the  gardeners'  care,  will  blossom  like  the 
rose.  Not  a  desert  even  now — for  no  place  where 
fighters  rest  is  a  desert — but  a  place  expectant, 
full  of  the  promise  of  beauty  to  come,  an  outward 
beauty  which  is  what  it  calls  for  as  its  right,  be- 
cause it  is  holy  ground.  Not  only  in  the  merely 
technical  sense  as  the  consecrated  earth  of  quiet 
English  cemeteries,  where  lie  all,  both  those  who 
lived  well  and  those  who  lived  basely,  but  holy 
as  a  place  can  only  be  when  it  is  held  by  those  who 
all  died  perfectly  .  .  . 

i  Here  and  there,  among  the  earth-brown  graves, 
stooping  above  them,  are  the  earth-brown  figures 
of  the  gardeners.  Every  grave  is  freshly  raked, 
moulded  between  wooden  frames  to  a  flat,  high 
surface  where  the  flowers  are  to  overflow,  and 
above  every  raised  dais  of  earth  the  bleached 
wood  of  the  cross  spreads  its  arms,  throwing  a 
shadow  soft  and  blue  like  a  dove's  feather,  a 
shadow  thatrcurves  over  the  mound  and  laps  down 
its  edge  lightly  as  a  benison.  On  each  cross  is  the 
little  white  metal  plate  giving  the  name  and  regi- 
ment of  the  man  who  lies  beneath  and  the  letters 
R.I. P.  Here  and  there  is  an  ugly  stiff  wreath 
of  artificial  immortelles  beneath  a  glass  frame,  the 


THE  BROWN  GRAVES  63 

pathetic  offering  of  those  who  came  from  Eng- 
land to  lay  it  there. 

Sometimes  a  wreath  fresh  and  green  shows  that 
someone  who  loves  the  dead  man  has  sent  money 
with  a  request  that  flowers  shall  be  bought  and 
put  upon  his  grave  on  the  anniversary  of  his  death. 
Sometimes,  when  they  come  over  from  England, 
these  poor  people  break  down  and  turn  blindly, 
as  people  will  for  comfort,  to  the  nearest  sym- 
pathy, to  the  women  gardeners  who  are  showing 
them  the  grave  they  came  to  see.  And  a  sudden 
note  of  that  deep  undercurrent  which  at  times  of 
stress  always  turns  the  members  of  either  sex  to 
their  own  sex  for  comfort  sends  the  women  mourn- 
ers to  the  arms  of  the  women  who  are  working 
beside  them.  Sentiment,  if  you  will — but  a  senti- 
ment that  is  stirred  up  from  the  deep  and  which 
would  scorn  the  apologies  of  the  critical. 

And  what  of  the  girls  who  work  daily  on  that 
sacred  earth,  who  see  before  their  eyes,  bright  in 
the  sun,  inexpressibly  grey  and  dauntless  in  the 
rain,  those  serried  rows  of  crosses,  all  so  alike 
and  each  standing  for  a  different  individuality,  a 
different  heartbreak — Do  you  suppose  that  they 
will  ever  again  forget  the  aspect  of  those  silent 
witnesses  to  the  splendour  and  the  unselfishness 
and  the  utter  release  from  pettiness  of  the  men 
who  lie  there?  This  is  what  it  is  to  make  good 
citizens,  and  that  is  what  the  members  of  the 
Women's  Army  are  doing  daily.  They  are  not 


64  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

only  doing  great  things  for  the  men — but  they 
are  making  of  themselves,  come  what  conditions 
may  after  the  war,  efficient,  big-minded  citizens 
who  will  be  able  to  meet  with  them. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

VIGNETTES 

THE  interesting  thing  about  the  various  places 
where  Waacs  are  housed,  which  I  saw,  is  that 
no  two  of  them  were  alike  in  atmosphere. 
I  had  rather  dreaded  much  seeing  of  camps,  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  though  I  saw  two,  they  were 
totally  unlike  each  other,  while  the  other  three 
places  that  I  saw  each  had  an  aspect,  a  charac- 
ter, unlike  the  others.  One  was  a  convalescent 
home  for  Waacs,  set  amidst  pine-trees,  a  house  of 
deep  wide  stairs,  airy  rooms,  long  cushioned 
chairs,  and  flowers,  where  one  might  well  be  con- 
tent to  be  just-not-well  for  a  long  time ;  the  others 
were  houses  where  those  Waacs  lived  who  were 

not  in  camps. 

***** 

Four  jaunty  chalets,  chalk-white  in  the  sun, 
hung  with  painted  galleries,  face  the  rolling  sand- 
dunes,  behind  them  the  sea,  a  darker  blue  than 
any  of  the  shadows  of  land  on  such  a  high-keyed 
day.  They  are  little  pleasure-villas,  these  chalets, 
fancy  erections  for  summer  visitors,  built  in  the 
days  when  this  little  Plage  was  a  resort  for  Pari* 


66  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

sians  playing  at  rusticity.  Delicious  artificial  use- 
less-looking creations,  bearing  apparently  about 
as  much  relation  to  a  normal  house  as  a  boudoir- 
cap  does  to  a  bowler.  Yet  they  are  charming  as 
only  little  French  pleasure-villas  can  be,  and  to  the 
receptive  mind  it  is  their  artificiality  that  makes 
such  a  delightful  note  of — well,  not  decadence, 
but  dilettantism — in  this  rolling  sandy  place, 
where  only  the  hand  of  Nature  is  to  be  seen  all 
around,  no  town,  no  village  even,  impinging  on 
the  curving  skylines,  the  very  road  up  to  their 
doors  but  a  track  in  the  sand. 

In  these  villas  live  incongruous  Waacs,  their 
khaki-clad  forms  swing  up  the  wooden  stairs  to 
the  galleries,  and  lean  from  the  windows,  always 
open  their  widest,  night  and  day.  Less  incongru- 
ous the  stout  boots  and  khaki  inside,  as,  though 
the  chintzes  are  bright  and  gay,  there  is  an  aspect 
of  stern  utility,  combined  with  an  austerity  that 
somehow  suits  the  blank  sandiness  of  the  sur- 
roundings. In  each  little  scrubbed  room  are  two 
beds,  each — for  the  Waacs  live  in  true  Army  fash- 
ion— with  its  dark  grey  blankets  folded  up  at  the 
head  of  the  bare  mattress;  in  the  sick  bay  alone 
the  beds  are  covered  with  bright  blue  counter- 
panes. In  the  recreation  room  and  the  Fore- 
women's Mess  are  easy  chairs  of  wicker  and 
flowers  and  pictures.  It  is  all  done  as  charm- 
ingly as  it  can  be  with  a  strict  eye  to  suitability; 
it  is  community  life,  of  course,  but  brought  as 


VIGNETTES  67 

nearly  as  possible  to  that  feeling  of  individuality 
which  makes  a  home  with  a  small  "h"  instead  of 
with  the  dreaded  capital. 

***** 

This  other  house  was  as  great  a  contrast  to  the 
bare  little  chalets  as  it  well  could  be.  It  also  was 
at  a  Plage,  it  too  had  been  built  for  pleasure,  but 
for  pleasure  de  luxe,  not  of  simple  bourgeois  fami- 
lies. The  wide  hall  with  its  polished  floor,  its 
great  carved  mantels,  its  dining-room  with  gleam- 
ing woods  and  glossy  table  and  sparkling  glass, 
its  big  lounge  with  tall  windows,  where  the  girls 
dance  and  play  the  piano — all  was  as  different 
from  the  bleached  scrubbed  wood  of  the  chalets  as 
it  well  could  be.  Yet  the  spirit  informing  the 
whole  was  the  same,  the  bedrooms  as  austere  in 
essence  even  if  they  boasted  carved  marble-topped 
chests,  and  even  here  the  Army  had  found  things 
to  improve,  such  as  the  making  of  paths  at  the 
back  of  the  house  of  round  tins  sunk  in  the  earth, 
and  steps  of  tin  biscuit  boxes,  ingenious  arrange- 
ments to  save  getting  your  feet  wet  on  a  muddy 
day  as  you  go  in  and  out  on  the  endless  errands 
of  domesticity.  And,  as  I  sat  at  lunch  in  the 
gleaming  dining-room,  where  the  wood  fire  burned 
on  the  wide  stone  hearth,  I  heard  the  girls  prac- 
tising for  a  musical  play  they  were  shortly  to 

produce. 

***** 


68  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

A  camp  is,  of  course,  a  camp,  but  there  is  a  cer- 
tain satisfaction  in  seeing  how  well  even  a  neces- 
sary evil  can  be  done.  Where  all  was  excellent, 
the  chief  thing  that  really  thrilled  me  was  the 
bath-rooms.  The  Waacs'  bath-rooms  are  the 
envy  and  despair  of  the  Army,  who  rage  vainly 
in  small  canvas  tubs.  The  Engineers  are  by  way 
of  spoiling  the  Waacs  whenever  possible,  and  bath- 
rooms, electric  bells,  electric  light  and  fancy  paths 
of  tin,  spring  up  before  them.  There  are  in  every 
Waac  camp  rows  of  bath-rooms  containing  each 
its  full-length  bath,  and  besides  that,  each  girl 
has  her  own  private  wash-place,  in  a  cubicle  for 
the  purpose.  For,  as  the  Chief  Controller  said 
to  me,  "After  all,  it  does  not  matter  the  girls 
having  to  sleep  together  in  dormitories  if  each 
has  absolute  privacy  for  washing,  that  is  so  much 
more  important."  To  which  it  is  quite  possible 
to  retort  that  there  are  those  of  us  who  would 
not  mind  bathing  in  front  of  the  whole  world  if 
only  we  are  allowed  to  sleep  by  ourselves.  But 
that  is  just  a  different  point  of  view,  and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  for  the  class  from  which  the  greater 
part  of  the  Waacs  are  drawn,  privacy  in  ablutions 
ranks  as  a  greater  thing  than  privacy  in  slumber, 
so  the  psychological  instinct  which  planned  the 
camps  is  justified. 

Besides  the  bath-rooms  and  the  ablution  cubi- 
cles, there  is  in  every  camp  one  or  more  drying- 
rooms,  which  are  always  heated,  and  where  the 


VIGNETTES  69 

wet  clothes  of  the  girls,  who  of  course  have  to 
be  out  in  all  weathers,  are  hung  to  dry.  Laundry, 
kitchens,  recreation  rooms,  mess-rooms,  long  Nis- 
sen  huts  for  sleeping,  I  went  the  round  of  them  all, 
and,  while  genuinely  admiring  them,  admired 
still  more  those  who  lived  in  them. 

Personally,  I  don't  like  a  Nissen  hut  nearly  as 
much  as  the  ordinary  straight-walled  sort.  I 
know  they  are  wonderfully  easy  to  erect  and  to 
move,  but  when  it  comes  to  trying  to  tack  a  pic- 
ture on  those  curved  walls  .  .  .  And  the  girls 
depend  so  on  their  little  bits  of  things,  such  as 
pictures  and  photographs  from  home.  You  will 
always  see  in  every  cubicle,  above  every  bed  in  a 
long  hut,  the  girl's  own  private  gallery,  the  lares 
and  penates  which  make  of  her,  in  her  bed  at 
least,  an  individual.  In  a  Nissen  hut  you  have  to 
turn  your  head  upside  down  to  get  a  view  of  the 
picture  gallery  at  all,  though  it  has  its  advan- 
tages to  the  girl  herself  as  she  lies  in  bed  and  can 
look  at  the  faces  of  her  parents,  absolutely  con- 
cave, curving  over  her  nose. 

As  I  was  leaving  this  camp  I  heard  sounds  of 
music  and  the  stamping  of  feet,  and  going  to  the 
Y.W.C.A.  hut  the  Unit  Administrator  and  I 
looked  in.  There,  to  a  vigorously  pounded  piano, 
an  instructress  from  the  Y.M.C.A.  was  teaching 
a  dozen  or  so  girls  Morris  dancing.  They 
beamed  at  us  from  hot  glowing  faces,  these  mighty 
daughters  of  the  plough,  and  continued  to  foot  it 


70  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

as  merrily,  if  as  heavily,  as  any  Elizabethan  vil- 
lagers dancing  in  their  Sunday  smocks  around  a 

Maypole. 

***** 

One  more  camp  I  saw,  on  a  later  day,  and 
though  it  was  a  camp,  yet  it  had  that  about  it 
which  distinguished  it  from  all  others.  For  it  was 
built  round  about  a  hoary  castle,  grey  with  years 
and  lichen,  from  whose  walls  they  say  Anne 
Boleyn  looked  down,  standing  beside  her  robust 
and  rufous  lover  on  that  honeymoon  which  was 
almost  all  of  happiness  she  was  to  know. 

Now  it  is  an  Army  School,  and  within  its  grey 
walls  and  towers  the  officers  are  billeted  and  in 
its  great  kitchens  the  Waacs  cook  for  them  and 
do  all  the  rest  of  the  domestic  work,  waiting  on 
the  officers'  mess  and  the  sergeants'  mess,  serving 
at  the  canteen,  doing  all  the  cleaning,  everything 
that  there  is  to  be  done  for  a  whole  army  school 
of  hungry  men  down  on  a  five-weeks'  course,  to 
say  nothing  of  all  the  work  for  themselves  in  their 
camp  at  the  castle's  gates,  and  there  are  sixty-six 
of  them,  not  counting  the  three  officers  who  are  at 
every  Waac  camp — the  Unit  Administrator,  and 
the  Deputy  and  Assistant  Administrators.  It  is 
hard  work,  and  endless  work,  and  though  every 
Waac  gets  a  few  hours  off  every  day,  and  though, 
as  you  have  seen,  everything  is  done  for  their 
healthy  recreation  that  can  be  done,  yet  the  life 
is  one  of  work  and  not  of  fun,  and  though  the 


VIGNETTES  71 

girls  flourish  under  it,  we  at  home  should  not  for- 
get that  fact  when  we  give  them  their  due  meed 
of  appreciation. 

But,  hard  as  the  life  is,  it  seemed  to  me  that  at 
that  camp  which  has  the  happiness  to  be  at  this 
castle,  its  duress  must  be  assuaged  by  the  beauty 
of  what  is  always  before  the  eyes.  Buried  in 
woods  it  is,  still  bare  when  I  saw  them,  but  with 
the  greenish  yellow  buds  of  daffodils  already  be- 
ginning to  unfold  in  great  clumps  through  the 
purple-brown  alleys,  and  with  primroses  making 
drifts  of  honey-pallor  and  honey-sweetness  beside 
the  slopes  of  ground  ivy,  while  from  beyond  the 
curving  ramparts  of  the  castle  shows  the  steely- 
quiet  glimmer  of  a  lake. 

For  war-  this  castle  was  built,  and  war  she  now 
sees  once  again,  for  the  arts  of  war  are  taught 
within  her  walls.  And  how  Anne  Boleyn's  roving 
eyes  would  have  brightened  at  the  sight  of  so  much 
youth,  at  the  sound  of  so  many  spurs!  Let  us 
hope  her  sore  spirit  can  still  find  pleasure  in  wan- 
dering again  over  the  scenes  where  she  once  was 
happy,  and  if  she  has  kept  enough  of  innocent 
wantonness  to  love  a  straight  man  when  she  sees 
one,  ghost  though  she  be,  and  if  her  nose  turn  up 
ever  so  daintily  at  the  clumsily-clad  members  of 
her  own  sex,  whose  toils  she  would  so  little  under- 
stand .  .  .  why,  she  is  but  a  ghost,  and  the  mod" 
ern  mind  must  contrive  to  forgive  her. 


72  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

These  slight  vignettes  have  all  been  of  vision; 
let  me  add  one  of  a  less  pictorial  nature.  The 
Unit  Administrators,  as  I  have  said,  have  to  act 
not  only  as  commanding  officers,  but  very  often 
as  mother-confessors  as  well.  Parents  write  to 
them  about  their  daughters,  would-be  suitors  write 
to  them  for  permission  to  marry  their  charges, 
and  amongst  the  letter-bag  are  often  epistles  that 
are  not  without  their  unconscious  humour.  One 
day  a  mother  writes  to  point  out  that  she  and  the 
rest  of  the  family  are  changing  houses,  and  so  may 
Flossie  please  come  home  for  a  few  days  .  .  . 
another  mentions  that  Gladys's  letters  of  late 
have  been  despondent,  and  please  could  she  be 
put  to  something  else  that  will  not  depress  her? 
Then  Gladys  is  had  up  in  front  of  the  Unit  Ad- 
ministrator, and  perhaps  turns  out  to  be  one  of  the 
born  whiners  found  everywhere,  perhaps  to  be 
merely  suffering  from  a  passing  fit  of  what  our 
ancestresses  would  have  called  the  megrims.  If 
her  work  is  found  to  be  really  unfitted  to  her  and 
it  is  possible  to  give  her  a  change,  then  it  is  done, 
but  as  a  rule  that  is  seldom  the  case,  as,  rather 
differently  from  what  we  used  to  hear  was  the 
way  in  the  Army,  every  Waac  Controller  finds 
out  what  the  girl  is  best  at  and  what  she  likes 
doing  most,  and  then,  as  far  as  possible,  arranges 
her  work  accordingly. 

Perhaps  a  letter  comes  from  a  Tommy  in  His 


VIGNETTES  73 

Majesty's  forces,  and  begins  something  like  this : — t 

"DEAR  MADAM, 

"I  beg  to  ask  your  permission  to  marry 
Miss  D.  Robinson,  at  present  under  your  com- 
mand. .  .  ." 

The  Unit  Administrator  writes  back  that 
she  will  endeavour  to  arrange  leave  for  the  mar- 
riage ;  and  perhaps  all  goes  well,  or  perhaps  some 
such  lugubrious  letter  as  this  will  follow: — 

"DEAR  MADAM, 

"Re  Miss  D.  Robinson,  at  present  under  your 
command,  take  no  notice  of  my  former  letter,  as' 
Miss  D.  Robinson  has  broken  off  the  engage- 
ment .  .  ." 

Human  nature  will  be  inhuman,  in  camps  and 
out  of  them,  and  because  Miss  D.  Robinson  is  do- 
ing a  man's  work  is  no  reason  why  she  should 
shed  the  privileges  of  her  sex. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EVENING 

GREY  rain  was  falling  in  straight  thin  lines 
upon  the  landscape,  suddenly  changed  from  its 
splendour  of  sun-bright  sands  and  blue  gleaming 
river  to  a  blotted  greyness.  The  rain  danced 
over  the  trampled  earth  at  the  V.A.D.  Motor 
Convoy  Camp,  filling  the  hollows  with  wrinkled 
water  and  making  the  great  ambulances 
shine  darkly.  It  was  not  a  pleasant  evening,  be- 
ing very  cold  withal,  and  snow  fell  amid  the  rain, 
but  the  Commandant  took  me  out  in  her  car  to 

give  me  as  comprehensive  a  view  of  E >  as 

could  be  seen  in  the  gathering  dusk. 

When  I  say  E I  don't  mean  the  little 

French  fishing  village,  near  which  we  did  not  go, 
but  the  whole  vast  town  of  huts  set  up  by  the 
B.E.F.  For  E is  become  a  town  of  hospi- 
tals. We  swung  round  corners,  down  long  inter- 
secting roads,  about  and  about,  and  always  there 
were  hospitals,  long  rows  of  hospitals,  each  a  lit- 
tle town  in  itself.  I  was  reminded  of  nothing  so 
much  as  the  great  temporary  townships  in  the 
Canal  Zone  at  Panama.  There  is  just  the  same 

74 


EVENING  75 

look  of  permanence  combined  with  the  feeling 
of  it  all  being  but  temporary,  while  materially 
there  is  an  air  about  board  and  tin  buildings  which 
is  the  same  the  world  over.  I  almost  expected  to 
see  a  negro  slouch  along  with  his  tools  slung  on 
his  back,  or  to  catch  sight  of  the  dark  film  of  a 
mosquito-proof  screen  over  doors  and  windows. 

And  the  Motor  Convoy  do  all  of  the  ambulance 
work  of  the  whole  big  district,  which  spreads  con- 
siderably beyond  even  this  great  hospital  town. 
There  are  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  members 
in  the  camp  and  about  eighty  of  the  big  Buick 
ambulances.  Unlike  the  Fanny  convoy  I  had 

seen,  there  are  at  E always  day  and  night 

shifts,  a  girl  being  on  night  duty  for  one  fort- 
night and  on  day  duty  for  the  next,  except  in  times 
of  stress,  when  everyone  works  day  and  night  too. 

We  came  in  from  our  drive  in  the  dark  and  I 
was  shown  to  the  room  I  was  to  have  for  as  much 
of  the  night  as  there  would  be,  considering  I  was 
going  out  on  a  convoy  at  one  o'clock.  It  belonged 
to  a  V.A.D.  at  the  moment  home  on  leave,  but 
she  had  left  a  nice  selection  of  bed-books  behind 
her,  for  which  I  was  grateful,  and  there  was  a 
little  electric  reading  lamp  perched  on  the  shelf 
above  the  bed.  It  was  a  tiny  place,  but  it  was 
all  to  myself. 

At  supper  in  the  mess-room,  with  Mr.  Leps,  the 
Great  Dane,  lying  by  the  stove  and  the  cat  curled 
between  his  outflung  paws,  we  were  waited  on  by 


76  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

a  very  pretty  V.A.D.  with  dark  eyes  and  a  deeply 
moulded  face  compact  of  soft  curves  and  pallor. 
Afterwards,  the  Commandant,  a  few  of  the  girls, 
and  I  went  into  her  room,  which  was  a  trifle  larger 
than  the  ordinary  run,  and  could  be  called  a  sit- 
ting-room at  one  end,  for  coffee  and  cigarettes. 
There  was  a  concert  on,  and  I  was  asked  whether 
I  would  like  to  go  to  it,  and,  at  the  risk  of  seeming 
ungracious,  I  said  if  they  didn't  mind  I  would 
rather  not.  They  said  that  they  would  rather  not, 
too.  I  had  seen  the  camp  before  dinner,  had 
marvelled  again  how  people  ever  got  used  to  liv- 
ing in  match-boxes  and  having  to  cross  a  strip 
of  out-of-doors  world  to  meals,  and  I  was  only 
wanting  to  sit  still,  and — if  the  Fates  were  kind- 
listen. 

For  all  the  time,  as  during  the  preceding  days, 
I  had  felt  the  depression  growing  over  me,  the 
terror  of  this  communal  life  which  took  all  you 
had  and  left  you — what?  What  corner  of  the 
soul  is  any  refuge  when  solitude  cannot  be  yours 
in  which  to  expand  it?  What  vagrant  impulse  can 
be  cherished  when  liberty  is  not  yours  to  indulge 
it? 

These  girls,  these  strong,  clear-eyed  creatures 
whom  I  had  seen,  day  after  day,  who  had  at  first 
impressed  me  only  with  their  youth,  their  school- 
girl gaiety,  their — horribile  dictu — their  "bright- 
ness"— was  it  possible  that  this  life  should  really 
content  them?  I  am  not  talking  now,  remember, 


EVENING  77 

of  Waacs,  girls  mostly  of  the  working  class,  or  of 
those  used  to  the  sedentary  occupation  of  clerk- 
ships, to  whom  this  life  is  the  biggest  freedom,  the 
greatest  adventure,  they  have  known.  I  am  talk- 
ing about  girls  of  a  class  who,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  lived  their  own  lives,  before  the  war,  did 
the  usual  social  round,  went  hither  and  thither 
with  no  man  to  say  them  nay — except  a  father, 
who  doesn't  count.  Young  femmes  du  monde, 
there  is  no  adequate  English  for  it,  sophisticated 
human  beings. 

For  women,  even  the  apparently  merely  out-of- 
door  hunting  games-playing  women,  have  arrived 
at  a  high  state  of  sophistication;  and  this  life 
they  now  lead  is  a  community  life  reduced  to  its 
essentials.  And  a  community  life,  though  the 
building  up  of  it  marked  the  first  stages  of  civilisa- 
tion, is,  to  the  perfected  product  of  civilisation, 
anathema.  Individuals  had  to  combine  to  make 
the  world,  but  now  that  it  is  made,  all  the  instincts 
of  the  most  highly  developed  in  it  are  towards 
complete  liberty  as  regards  the  amount  of  social 
intercourse  in  which  he  or  she  wishes  to  indulge. 
We  have  fought  through  thousands  of  years  for 
a  state  of  society  so  civilised  that  it  is  safe  to  with- 
draw from  it  and  be  alone  without  one's  enemy 
tracking  one  down  and  hitting  one  over  the  head 
with  an  axe. 

This  right,  fought  for  through  the  ascending 
ages,  these  girls  have  deliberately  forgone,  as 


78  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

every  man  in  the  Army  has  to  forgo  it  also.  Were 
they  aware  of  this?  Or  did  they,  after  all,  like 
it,  unthinkingly,  without  analysis? 

I  had  wondered  as  I  saw  my  previous  convoys 
and  camps,  and  I  had  wondered  again  as  I  saw 
over  this  convoy — saw  the  usual  tiny  cubicles, 
with  gay  chintz  curtains  and  photographs  from 
home,  and  the  shelf  of  books,  saw  the  great  bare 
mess-rooms,  the  sitting-room,  bright  with  cush- 
ions, cosy  with  screens  and  long  chairs,  saw  the 
admirable  bath-rooms,  with  big  enamelled  baths 
and  an  unlimited  supply  of  hot  water,  saw  the 
two  parks  where  the  great  ambulances  were 
ranged,  shadowy  and  huge  in  the  growing  gloom 
and  thick  downpour  of  rain.  Everywhere  smil- 
ing faces,  uplifted  voices,  quick  steps — yet  I  won- 
dered. 

Was  it  possible  this  malaise  of  community  life 
never  weighed  on  their  souls?  And,  if  possible — 
was  it  good  that  it  should  be  so? 

I  managed,  stumblingly,  to  convey  something  of 
my  thought,  of  the  depression  which  had  been 
eating  at  me — not,  as  I  tried  to  explain,  that  I 
didn't  admire  them  all,  Heaven  knew,  rather  that 
I  must  be,  personally,  such  a  weak-kneed,  back- 
boneless  creature  to  feel  I  couldn't,  for  any  cause 
on  earth,  have  stood  it.  And  I  wanted — how  I 
wanted — to  know  how  it  was  they  did  .  .  . 
whether  they  really  and  actually  could  like  it 
.  .  .  ?  "Of  course,  I  know,"  I  ended  apolo- 


EVENING  79 

getically,  "some  people  like  a  community  life " 

"They  must  be  in  love  with  it  to  like  com- 
munity life  carried  to  this  extent,  then,"  said  one 
swiftly,  and  a  small,  fair  creature,  with  a  ribbon 
bound  round  her  hair,  agreed  with  her.  She  in- 
terested me,  that  fair  girl,  because  she  was  one 
of  those  people  who  feel  round  for  the  right  word 
until  they  have  found  it,  however  long  it  takes; 
impervious  to  cries  of  "Go  on,  get  it  off  your 
chest,"  she  still  sat  quietly  and  wrestled  until  the 
word  came  which  exactly  expressed  the  fine  edge 
of  her  meaning.  She  knew  so  well  what  she 
wanted  to  say  that  she  didn't  want  to  say  it  any 
differently. 

They  all  talked,  each  throwing  in  a  sentence  to 
the  discussion  now  and  again,  but  not  one  of  them 
grumbled.  Yet  they  all  showed  plainly  that  it 
was  not  a  blind  enjoyment — or,  indeed,  much  en- 
joyment at  all — that  they  found  in  the  life.  They 
were  reasoning,  critical,  analytic,  and  extraordi- 
narily dispassionate. 

I  can't  put  that  conversation  down  for  two  rea- 
sons, the  first  being  that  one  doesn't  print  the  talk 
of  one's  hostesses,  and  the  second  that  it  would 
be  too  difficult  to  catch  all  those  little  half-uttered 
sentences,  those  little  alleys  of  argument  that  led 
to  understanding,  but  led  elliptically,  as  is  the  way 
of  either  sex  when  it  is  unencumbered  by  the  ne- 
cessity of  dotting  its  i's  for  the  comprehension 
of  the  other.  But  out  of  that  hour  emerged,  shim 


80  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

ing,  several  things  which  we  in  England  ought  to 
realise  better,  and  which  lifted  for  me  that  cloud 
of  depression  which  had  lowered  over  me  all  the 
days  in  France. 

These  are  not  bouncing  school-girls,  "good  fel- 
lows"  having  the  time  of  their  lives,  as  vaguely 
those  in  England  consider  them,  they  are,  thank 
goodness,  finely-evolved  human  beings  who  no 
more  enjoy  "brightness"  than  you  or  I  would. 
And  it  was  the  terrible  feeling  that  everyone  was 
so  "bright"  which  had  oppressed  me  more  than 
anything  else.  The  joy  of  finding  that  it  wasn't 
so,  that  what  I  had  feared  I  should  be  forced  to 
take  as  the  unreflecting  school-girl  humour  of 
overgrown  school-girls  was  only  a  protective  as- 
pect, that  behind  it  the  eyes  of  not  only  sane  but 
subtle  young  women  looked  out  with  amusement 
and  patience  upon  a  world  determined  to  see  in 
them,  first  and  last,  "brightness"  1 

Perhaps  five  per  cent. — such  was  the  estimate 
flung  out  into  the  talk — of  the  girls  really  do  en- 
joy it,  the  ghastly,  prolonged,  cold-blooded  picnic 
of  it,  perhaps  five  per  cent,  really  are  having  the 
"time  of  their  lives,"  but  the  rest  of  them  have 
moments  when  it  hardly  seems  possible  to  stick 
it.  Yet  they  stick  it,  and  stick  it  in  good  comrade- 
ship, which  is  the  greatest  test  of  the  lot.  Their 
salvation  lies  in  the  separate  rooms — small,  cold, 
but  a  retreat  from  the  octopus  of  community 
life. 


WAACS   IN   THE   BAKERY 


WAAC    COOKS    PREPARIXG    VEGETABLES 


WAAC   ENCAMPMENT   PROTECTED   BY   SANDBAGS 


EVENING  81 

That  concert  which  I  had  felt  so  apologetic  not 
to  attend — what  a  relief  it  had  been  to  them  that  I 
didn't  want  to,  didn't  want  to  get  "local  colour" 
and  write  of  them  as  being  so  jolly,  so  gay!  For 
this  again  is  typical — there  are  perhaps  five  girls 
out  of  every  hundred  who  enjoy  being  amused,  to 
whom  it  is  all  part  of  the  life  which  they  actually 
love,  but  From  the  greater  part  goes  up  the  cry, 
"Work  us  as  hard  as  you  like,  but  for  Heaven's 
sake  don't  try  and  amuse  us !" 

For,  of  course,  it  takes  differing  temperaments 
differently.  To  some  community  life  is  little  short 
of  a  nightmare,  but  to  all  there  come  moments 
when  it  is  exceedingly  maddening.  In  those  mo- 
ments your  own  room  or  a  big  hot  bath  are  won- 
derful ways  of  salvation. 

As  we  talked,  from  A.  came  th,e  theory  that  she 
was  only  afraid  it  would  prevent  her  ever  loving 
motors  again;  and  she  had  always  adored  motors 
as  the  chief  pleasure  of  life,  before  they  became 
the  chief  business.  B.  could  not  agree  to  that. 
C.,  who  did  agree,  pointed  out  that  it  was  on  the 
same  principle  as  never  wanting  to  go  back  to  a 
place,  no  matter  how  beautiful  it  was,  if  you  had 
been  very  unhappy  there.  Even  after  your  un- 
happiness  was  dead  and  buried  it  would  always 
spoil  that  place  for  you.  .  .  .  B.  said  "Yes"  to 
that,  but  argued  that  it  would  not  spoil  the  beauty 
of  other  places  for  you,  which  would  be  the  equiv- 


82  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

alent  of  this  life  spoiling  all  motors  for  A.,  after 
the  war. 

The  flaws  in  the  analogy  were  not  pursued,  for 
D.  advanced  an  interesting  theory  that  the  hardest 
part  of  it  was  that  you  were  so  afraid  of  what 
you  might  be  missing  all  the  time  somewhere  else. 
She  argued  that  the  difficulty  with  her  had  always 
been  to  make  up  her  mind  to  any  one  course  of 
action,  because  it  shut  off  all  the  others,  and,  like 
so  many  of  us,  she  wanted  everything.  .  .  . 

A.  said  that  shilly-shalliers  never  got  anywhere, 
but  I  maintained  with  D.  that  it  wasn't  shilly- 
shallying, which  is  another  sort  of  thing  alto- 
gether, it  was  the  passionate  desire  to  get  the  most 
out  of  life,  to  discover  what  was  most  worth 
while.  "I  want  to  spend  ten  years  in  the  heart  of 
China  more  than  to  do  any  one  thing,"  I  pointed 
out,  "but  I  sha'n't  do  it  because  when  I  came  out 
I  shouldn't  be  young  any  more.  Therefore  the 
ten  years  in  China  will  have  to  go  to  a  man,  be- 
cause it  doesn't  matter  so  much  to  a  man."  This 
life  in  the  B.E.F.  was  D.'s  ten  years  in  China, 
not  because — heaven  forbid — it  is  going  to  last 
ten  actual  years,  or  even  that,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  it  was  ageing  her  at  all,  but  simply  because 
while  she  was  doing  it  she  couldn't  be  doing  any- 
thing else.  She  had  had  to  burn  her  boats. 

Now  that,  to  a  certain  temperament,  means  a 
great  deal,  and  it  is  one  of  the  things,  if  not  the 
chief  thing,  that  marks  service  in  France  off  from 


EVENING  83 

equally  hard  work  at  home,  and  makes  it,  for  rea- 
sons outside  the  work,  so  much  harder. 

All  natures  are  not  the  same  as  D.'s,  of  course. 
To  one  girl  a  certain  thing  is  the  hardship,  to  an- 
other a  different  thing.  But  the  point  is  that  the 
hardship  is  there,  not  physical,  but  mental,  and  to 
me  it  was  the  most  exquisite  discovery  I  could 
have  made  in  the  whole  of  France.  For  the  finer 
the  instrument,  the  more  fine  it  is  of  it  to  per- 
form the  work,  and  the  more  finely  will  that  work, 
in  the  long  run,  be  done. 


CHAPTER   X 

NIGHT 

t 

NOT  being  among  the  lucky  creatures  who  can 
fall  happily  to  sleep  when  they  know  they  are  to 
be  called  at  one  o'clock,  I  lay  in  my  tiny  bed  and 
revelled  in  that  wonderful  story  of  "The  Bridge 
Builders'*  out  of  "The  Day's  Work,"  till  the 
sound  of  the  storm  without  became  the  voice  of 
Mother  Gunga.  Then  I  turned  out  the  light  and 
lay  and  listened  to  the  truly  fiendish  train  whistles 
which  no  reading  could  have  transmuted,  and  won- 
dered why  it  is  that  French  engine  drivers  appar- 
ently pay  no  attention  to  signals,  but  just  go  on 
whistling  till  they  are  answered,  like  someone 
who  goes  on  ringing  a  bell  till  at  length  the  door 
is  opened.  The  rain  was  turning  to  snow,  so  there 
was  less  of  that  steady  tinkling  from  without  with 
which  running  water  fills  the  world.  I  lay  and 
listened;  and  the  whistles  and  the  bellying  of  the 
chintz  curtain  and  the  occasional  swish  of  a  heavy 
gust  against  the  side  of  the  hut  were  at  last  be- 
ginning to  blend  in  one  blur  in  my  mind  when  a 
girl  came  softly  into  my  room  and  whispered  that 
it  was  time  to  dress. 

84 


NIGHT  85 

That  utter  quietness  of  the  girls  was  a  thing  that 
had  impressed  me  after  staying  in  hotels  full  of 
the  British  Army,  which  goes  to  bed  at  midnight, 
bangs  its  doors,  throws  its  boots  outside,  shouts 
from  room  to  room,  and  begins  the  whole  proc- 
ess, reversed,  at  about  six  o'clock  the  next  morn- 
ing. Here  the  girls  wore  soundless  slippers,  so 
that  those  who  had  to  be  about  should  not  disturb 
those  who  slept,  and  doors  were  opened  and  shut 
with  a  cotton-wool  care  which  appealed  to  me,  or 
would  have,  if  I  hadn't  had  to  get  up. 

When  I  was  dressed  I  found  my  way  down  end- 
less blowy  corridors,  for  the  doors  at  the  ends 
are  always  kept  open,  to  the  room  of  the  girl  who 
had  called  me.  She  looked  at  my  fur  coat  and 
said  it  would  get  spoilt.  I  replied  with  great  truth 
that  it  was  past  spoiling,  but  she  took  it  off  me, 
whipped  my  cap  from  my  head,  and  the  girls 
proceeded  to  dress  me.  They  pulled  a  leather 
cap  with  ear-pieces  down  on  my  head  and  stuffed 
me  into  woolly  jackets  and  wound  my  neck  up  in 
a  comforter  and  finished  up  with  a  huge  leather 
coat  and  a  pair  of  fur  gloves  like  bear's  paws, 
so  that  when  all  was  done  I  couldn't  bend  and 
had  to  be  hoisted  quite  stiff  up  to  the  front  of  the 
ambulance. 

But  first  we  all  went  into  the  kitchen,  where 
part  of  the  domestic  staff  sits  up  all  night  to  pre- 
pare food  for  the  night  drivers.  There  we  drank 
the  loveliest  cocoa  I  ever  met,  the  sort  the  spoon 


86  JTHE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

would  stand  up  in,  piping  hot,  out  of  huge  bowls. 
Then  my  driver  and  the  section  leader  for  the 
night  led  me  across  the  soaking  park  to  where, 
in  almost  total  darkness,  girls  were  busy  with 
their  ambulances.  I  was  hoisted  up  beside  my 
driver  and  endeavoured  clumsily  with  my  bear's 
paws  to  fasten  the  canvas  flap  back  across  the  side 
as  I  was  bidden.  I  may  say  that  I  felt  extraordi- 
narily clumsy  amongst  these  girls,  most  of  whom 
could  have  put  me  in  their  pockets.  They  knew 
so  exactly  what  to  do,  their  movements  were  all 
so  perfectly  adjusted  to  their  needs,  they  knew 
where  everything  was,  while  I  fumbled  for  steps 
and  hoped  for  the  best.  .  .  .  They  made  me  feel, 
in  the  beautiful  way  they  shepherded  me,  that  I 
was  a  silly  useless  female  and  that  they  were  grave 
chivalrous  young  men ;  they  watched  over  me  with 
just  that  matter-of-fact  care. 

To  me  it  was  all  wonderful,  that  experience. 
To  the  girls,  who  do  it  every  night,  every  alter- 
nate fortnight,  year  in,  year  out,  the  thrill  of  it 
has  naturally  gone  long  since ;  the  wonder  is  that 
to  them  all  remains  the  pity  of  it.  We  swung  out 
of  the  park  into  the  road.  There  was  no  moon, 
the  stars  were  mostly  hidden  by  the  heavy  clouds, 
the  sleet  blew  in  gusts  against  the  wind  screen. 
We  went  at  a  good  pace,  bound  for  a  Canadian 

hospital,  and  then  for  a  station  beyond  E , 

where  the  train  was  waiting,  for  this  was  what 
is  called  an  "evacuation"  that  I  was  going  to  see. 


NIGHT  87 

No  train  of  wounded  was  due  in  that  night,  and 
the  Convoy's  business  was  to  take  men  who  were 
being  sent  elsewhere  from  the  hospitals  to  the 
train. 

We  stopped  in  front  of  a  shadow  hospital,  set 
in  a  town  of  shadow-huts,  and  a  door  opened  to 
show  an  oblong  of  orange  light,  and  send  a  paler 
shaft  widening  out  into  the  night  towards  the  sleek 
side  of  our  ambulance. 

We  heard  the  men  being  placed  in  the  ambu- 
lance, the  word  was  given,  and  again  we  set  off 
through  the  night,  this  time  so  slowly,  so  carefully, 
for  we  carried  that  which  must  not  be  jarred  one 
hair's  breadth  more  than  could  be  helped.  We 
crept  along  the  roads,  past  the  pines  that  showed 
as  patches  of  denser  blackness  against  the  sky, 
past  the  sand-dunes  that  glimmered  ghostly,  past 
the  blots  of  shadow  made  by  every  shrub  and  tree- 
trunk,  and  behind  and  before  us  crawled  other 
ambulances,  laden  even  as  we. 

The  station  was  wrapped  in  darkness,  save  for 
a  hanging  light  here  and  there,  and  an  occasional 
uncurtained  window  in  the  waiting  train.  We 
drew  up  under  a  light,  where  a  sergeant  was  wait- 
ing. 

"Four  from  No.  7  Canadian,"  said  my  driver 
crisply.  The  sergeant  repeated,  looked  at  a  list 
he  carried  and  marked  our  cases  off  it  duly,  then 
told  us  the  number  of  the  compartment  where  we 


88  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

should  stop.  The  ambulance  slid  on,  very  slowly, 
beside  the  train  and  slowly  came  to  rest. 

I  could  see  into  the  white-painted  interior  of 
the  train,  could  see  the  shelves  running  along  its 
sides,  and  on  the  shelves,  making  oblong  shapes 
of  darkness  against  all  the  white,  men  laid 
straightly  ...  in  front  of  us  the  Red  Cross  or- 
derlies were  sliding  men  down  on  stretchers  from 
the  shelves  of  an  ambulance,  slipping  them  out, 
carrying  them  up  into  the  train  and  packing  them 
on  the  shelves  like  fragile  and  precious  parcels. 

And  suddenly  it  seemed  to  me  there  was  some- 
thing profoundly  touching  about  the  sight  of  a 
man  lying  flat  and  helpless,  shoved  here  and  there, 
in  spite  of  all  the  care  and  kindness  with  which  it 
was  accomplished.  It  is  a  thing  wrong  in  essence, 
it  seems  an  outrage  on  Nature — I  got  an  odd  feel- 
ing that  there  was  something  wrong  and  unnatural 
about  the  mere  posture  of  lying-down  that  I  never 
thought  of  before.  The  world  seemed  suddenly 
to  have  become  deformed,  as  a  monster  is  de- 
formed who  is  born  distorted.  It  shouldn't  be 
possible  to  slide  men  on  to  shelves  like  this.  .  .  . 

The  girl  at  the  wheel  pushed  back  the  little 
shutter  set  in  the  front  of  the  ambulance  and  we 
looked  into  the  dimly-lit  interior.  I  could  see  the 
crowns  of  four  heads,  the  jut  of  brow  beyond 
them,  the  upward  peak  of  the  feet  under  the  grey 
blankets,  pale  hands,  one  pair  thin  as  a  child's, 
that  lay  limply  along  the  edge  of  the  stretchers. k 


NIGHT  89 

The  orderlies  came  to  the  open  door,  one  man 
mounted  within,  and  the  top  stretcher  from  one 
side  was  slipped  along  its  grooves  and  dis- 
appeared, tilted  into  the  night.  The  boy  on  the 
top  stretcher  the  other  side  turned  his  head  lan- 
guidly and  watched — I  could  see  a  pale  cheek, 
foreshortened  from  where  I  sat,  a  sweep  of  long 
dark  eyelashes,  the  curve  of  the  drooping  upper 
lip.  His  turn  came,  and,  passive,  he  too  was  slid 
out,  then  the  two  men  below  were  carried  away 
and  up  into  the  train.  The  ambulance  was  empty. 

We  turned  in  a  circle  over*  the  muddy  yard  and 
started  off  again,  stopping  again  by  the  sergeant 
to  get  our  orders. 

"Number  4,"  said,  the  sergeant,  and  we  swung, 
once  more' at  a  good  pace,  along  the  heavy  roads, 
took  fresh  turnings  about  and  about  in  the  city 
of  hospital  huts,  and  drew  up  at  Number  4. 

Again  we  were  loaded,  and  again  we  crept  back' 
along  the  roads  where  we  had  a  few  minutes  be- 
fore gone  so  swiftly,  meeting  empty  cars,  keeping 
in  line  behind  those  laden  like  ourselves.  Again 
we  slowed  down  by  the  waiting  sergeant  to  say, 
"Two  stretchers  and  two  sitters  from  Four." 
He  echoed  us,  and  we  crept  on  to  the  appointed 
carnage  and  stopped.  So  it  went  on  through 
a  couple  of  hours,  ambulance  after  ambulance 
swiftly  leaving  the  station,  slowly  coming  back, 
all  drawing  up  gently  by  the  train,  each,  opened, 
making  a  faint  square  of  light  in  the  velvet  dark- 


90  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

ness.  And  then,  at  last,  when  it  was  all  over,  the 
return,  swift  again,  towards  the  camp. 

We  bumped  along  the  road,  the  dim  pines  fall- 
ing away  into  the  shadows  behind,  a  very  mild 
funnel  of  light  showing  us  a  scrap  of  the  way 
before  us  and  of  hedge  on  either  side,  the  twigs 
of  it  perpetually  springing  out  palely  to  die  away 
once  more.  The  wind  was  behind  us  and  the 
screen  clear;  far  ahead  of  us  on  the  road  was  an 
empty  ambulance  with  its  curtains  drawn  back, 
bare  but  for  its  empty  stretchers  and  dark  blank- 
ets, which  made,  in  the  pale  glow  of  the  white- 
painted  interior,  a  sinister  Face — two  hollow  eyes 
and  a  wide  mouth — that  fled  through  the  night, 
always  keeping  the  same  distance  ahead,  grimac- 
ing at  me,  like  an  image  of  the  Death's  Head  of 
War.  ...  I  was  glad  when  it  swung  round  a 
turning  and  was  lost  to  us. 

We  drove  into  the  unrelieved  darkness  of  the 
convoy  park  and  drew  up  with  precision  in  our 
place,  I  wrestled  again  with  the  flap,  and  we  got 
out  into  the  wet  sleet,  half-snow,  half-rain.  My 
driver  covered  up  the  bonnet  with  tarpaulin, 
turned  off  the  lights,  and  we  went  across  to  the 
kitchen.  It  was  half-past  three,  and  we  were  the 
first  to  come  back;  we  asked  for  bowls  of  soup 
and  stood  sipping  them  and  munching  sandwiches 
that  lay  ready  cut  in  piles  upon  the  table. 

Then,  one  ofter  another,  the  drivers  entered 
.  .  .  pulling  off  their  great  gloves  as  they  came, 


NIGHT  91 

stamping  the  snow  from  their  boots.  They  stood 
about,  drinking  from  their  steaming  bowls,  bright- 
eyed,  apparently  untired,  throwing  little  quick 
scraps  of  talk  to  each  other — about  the  slowness 
of  "St.  John's"  on  this  particular  night,  who  hadn't 
their  cases  ready  and  kept  one  or  two  ambulances 
"simply  ages";  or  the  engine  trouble  developed 
by  one  car  which  still  kept  it  out  somewhere  on 
the  road.  And  I  stood  and  listened  and  watched 
them,  and  I  received  an  impression  of  extraordi- 
nary beauty. 

These  girls,  with  their  leather  caps  coming 
down  to  their  brows  and  over  their  ears,  looked 
like  splendid  young  airmen,  their  clear,  bold  faces 
coming  out  from  between  the  leather  flaps.  They 
were  not  pretty,  they  were  touched  with  something 
finer,  some  quality  of  radiance  only  increased  by 
their  utter  unconsciousness  of  it.  Each  girl,  with 
her  clear  face,  her  round,  close  head,  her  stamp- 
ing feet  and  strong,  cold  hands,  seemed  so  in- 
tensely alive  within  the  dark?  globe  of  the  night, 
that  her  life  was  heightened  to  a  point  not  earthly, 
as  though  she  were  a  visitant  from  the  snows  or 
fields  I  had  not  seen,  fields  Olympian.  .  .  .  And 
as  each  came  swinging  in — "vera  incessu  patult 
dea.  .  .  ." 

I  could  have  wished  them  there  for  ever,  like 
some  sculptured  frieze,  so  lovely  was  the  rightness 
and  the  inspiration  of  it. 

But  I  went  to  my  bed,  and  one  of  the  goddesses 


92  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

insisted  on  refilling  my  hot-water  bag,  though  I 
assured  her  it  would  be  quite  well  as  it  was,  and  I 
was  unwound  from  my  swaddling  clothes  and  left 
to  dream. 


CHAPTER   XI 


"AND  THE  BRIGHT  EYES  OF  DANGER" 


SINCE  the  beginning  of  things  women  have  been 
mixed  up  in  war,  and  it  is  only  as  the  world  has 
become  more  civilised  (if  in  view  of  the  present 
one  can  make  that  assertion)  that  their  place  in 
it  has  been  questioned.  The  whole  question  of 
the  civilian  population  has  taken  on  a  different 
aspect  since  the  outbreak  of  this  war,  owing  to 
the  extraordinary  and  unprecedented  penalties  at- 
tached to  the  civilian  status  by  Germany,  but  the 
sub-division  labelled  "Women"  has  perhaps  under- 
gone more  revision  than  any.  It  has  undergone 
so  much  revision,  in  fact,  that  women  have,  in 
large  masses,  ceased  to  be  civilians  and  are  ranked 
as  the  Army. 

If  it  be  frankly  conceded  that  it  is  as  natural  for 
women  to  want  to  get  to  the  war  as  men,  one 
clears  the  way  for  profitable  discussion  without 
wasting  time  while  the  outworn  epithets  of  "un- 
womanly" and  "sensation-hunters"  are  flung 
through  the  air  to  the  great  obscuring  thereof. 
The  delight  in  danger  for  its  own  sake  is  common 
to  all  human  beings,  to  the  young  as  an  intoxi- 

93 


94  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

cant,  to  the  old  as  a  drug.  It  is  not  the  least 
of  the  tragedies  of  woman  that  this  is  a  delight 
in  which  she  is  so  seldom  able  to  indulge. 

When  the  war  broke,  everyone  wanted  to  go  and 
see  what  it  was  like,  and  it  is  merely  useless  to 
observe  that  this  was  treating  it  as  a  huge  picnic. 
Before  the  tightening-up  process  began,  in  the 
wonderful  days  when  the  war  was  still  fluid,  it 
was  possible  to  get  out  to  the  front — the  real 
front — on  all  sorts  of  excuses.  The  tightening-up 
was  necessary,  and  all  too  slow,  but  let  us  not, 
because  of  that,  fall  into  the  error  of  calling  the 
instinct  which  urged  non-combatants  "mere"  curi- 
osity, as  though  that  were  not  the  greatest  of  the 
gifts  of  the  gods,  without  which  nothing  is  done. 

Among  these  non-combatants  who  wanted  to 
see  the  war  were  many  women,  and  if,  mixed  with 
their  patriotism  and  desire  to  help,  went  a  streak 
of  that  love  of  danger  which  is  no  disgrace  to  a 
man — why,  I  maintain  that  it  is  no  disgrace  to  a 
woman  either,  but  as  natural  an  instinct  as  that 
which  drives  one  to  a  wayside  orchard  if  one  is 
hungry. 

There  is  nothing  sooner  slaked,  for  the  time 
being,  than  this  inherent  love  of  danger.  Men 
who  wanted  the  fun  of  it  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  are  heartily  sick  of  it  now,  though  they 
wouldn't  be  out  of  it  for  worlds.  But  most  of  the 
women  haven't  been  allowed  enough  danger  to  get 
sick  of  it,  and  so,  in  patches  of  young  women  you 


"AND  THE  BRIGHT  EYES  OF  DANGER"    95 

meet  working  in  France,  the  old  craving  still  lifts 
its  head.  I  came  across  a  delightful  streak  of  it 
at  T •,  the  oldest  big  convoy  in  France. 

The  garage,  over  which  the  girls  live,  for  their 
camp  is  still  a-building,  is  set  in  the  eye  of  the 
cold  winter  winds  on  the  top  of  a  hill  overlooking 
the  sea.  It  was  snowing  heavily  as  I  drove  up, 
great  fat  flakes  of  snow  that  wove  and  interwove 
in  the  air  in  the  way  that  only  snowflakes  can,  so 
that  sometimes  they  look  as  though  they  were 
falling  upwards.  The  long  line  of  the  wooden 
garage  showed  dark  in  the  background,  in  the 
space  before  it  the  ambulances  stood  about,  but 
the  girls  were  fox-trotting  in  couples  all  about 
them,  their  big  rubber  boots  shuffling  up  little 
clouds  of  snow;  on  the  head  of  one  girl  was 
swathed  a  greenish-blue  handkerchief,  which 
made  a  lovely  note  of  colour  against  the  swirling 
whiteness. 

I  was  taken  in  through  the  garage,  where  two 
drivers  were  painting  their  cars — for  all  painting 
is  done  by  the  girls,  sometimes  with  unexpected 
effects,  as  on  one  car  which  I  saw,  where  "Eve" 
from  the  Taller  and  her  little  dog  were  depicted 
in  front  of  the  body — and  up  a  flight  of  wooden 
stairs  with  an  out-of-doors  landing  on  top,  to 
the  cubicles,  which  opened  off  on  either  side  of 
the  open-ended  passage  for  the  whole  length  of 
the  building.  Here,  in  one  of  the  little  bedrooms 
for  two,  we  had  a  meal  of  cocoa  and  cake,  known 


96  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

as  the  "elevener,"  for  the  obvious  reason  that  it 
is  consumed  at  eleven  every  morning.  It  was  all 
quite  different  from  my  evening  at  the  convoy  at 
E ,  but  equally  stimulating. 

The  great  plaint  of  the  girls  was  that  they 
weren't  allowed  nearer  the  fighting  line,  and  I 
heard  a  story  of  how,  in  the  early  days,  two  cars 
had  managed  to  get  right  through  to  Poperinghe, 
when  that  town  was  the  centre  of  the  Boche's  at- 
tentions, by  the  simple  expedient  of  the  girl-driv- 
ers turning  up  their  coat  collars,  pulling  their 
peaked  caps  well  down  over  their  eyes,  and  just 
going  ahead.  They  had  a  lovely  time  in  Poper- 
inghe and  lunched  under  shell-fire,  and  when  the 
military,  including  the  Staff,  were  sitting  in  cellars, 
the  "Chaufferettes"  sallied  forth  and  bought  pic- 
ture post-cards. 

"It's  a  shame  they  won't  let  us  go  up  to  the 
line  now " 

"Yes,  indeed,"  put  in  another  very  seriously,  as 
though  she  were  adding  the  last  uncontrovertible 
proof  to  the  perfidy  of  the  authorities — "They 
let  the  sisters  get  shelled,  so  why  shouldn't  they 
let  us?" 

Isn't  that  a  delightful  spirit,  and,  I  beg  leave  to 
insist,  a  perfectly  natural  and  proper  one?  Any 
decent  human  being  would  like  to  be  shelled — 
who  hasn't  been  shelled  too  much.  It  is  like  be- 
ing in  love — a  thing  that  ought  to  happen  at  least 
once  to  everybody. 


"AND  THE  BRIGHT  EYES  OF  DANGER"    97 

One. of  my  hostesses  was  a  violinist  and  plays 
at  all  the  concerts  for  the  wounded  which  take 
place  thereabouts.  I  asked  her  whether  she  didn't 
find  the  work  ruination  to  her  fingers  for  the  vio- 
lin, but  all  she  said  carelessly  was  that  .they  had 
been  ruined  for  three  years  now,  but  it  didn't 
matter,  as  anyway  she  couldn't  have  practised 
even  if  she  had  the  time,  since  there  were  always 
some  girls  trying  to  sleep. 

And  what  do  the  local  French  people  think  of 
these  young  girls  in  their  midst,  who  work  like 
men  and  are  out  in  all  weathers  and  drive  the 
soldiers  wounded  in  the  great  common  cause? 
They  are  quite  charming  to  them,  and  indeed, 
when  they  first  came,  the  French  met  them  at 
every  station  with  bouquets  of  flowers,  so  that  the 
girls,  pleased  and  embarrassed,  English  fashion, 
had  a  triumphal  progress.  But  there  are  some 
of  the  French  neighbours  who  think  the  life  must 
be  very  hard  on  the  poor  things,  and  when,  a  little 
while  ago,  the  Convoy  organised  a  paper  chase, 
the  popular  belief  was  that  the  hares  were  escap- 
ing from  the  rigours  of  life.  .  ,  .  When  the  pant- 
ing hares  asked  wayfaring  traps  for  a  lift,  it  was 
refused  them,  as,  though  the  kindly  drivers  had 
every  sympathy  with  the  projected  escape,  they 
were  not  going  to  assist  them  to  defy  authority  1 

The  hardships  which  this  Convoy  had  under- 
gone I  did  not  hear  about  from  them,  but  from 
their  Commandant.  She  told  me  of  three  weeks 


98  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

at  the  beginning  of  things,  when  there  Were  no 
fires,  no  hot  water,  except  a  little  always  simmer- 
ing for  pouring  into  the  radiators  of  the  cars 
when  there  came  a  night  call — for  the  snow  was 
frozen  on  -the  ground  all  those  three  weeks  and 
the  water  in  the  jugs  was  ice.  The  girls  didn't 
talk  about  that  because  they  were  not  interested 
in  it,  but  neither  would  they  talk  about  one  other 
thing,  though  for  a  very  different  reason — and 
that  was  of  the  time  when,  after  the  great  Ger- 
man gas  attacks  at  Nieuport,  they  had  to  drive 
the  gassed  men  who  came  on  the  hospital  trains. 
.  .  .  You  can't  get  them  now  to  describe  what 
that  was  like,  nor  would  you  have  tried,  warned 
by  the  sudden  change  of  voice  in  which  they  even 
mentioned  it. 

There  was  one  point  'n  which  this  Convoy 
seemed  to  me  to  touch  the  extreme  of  abnegation 
attained  by  the  G.S.V.A.D.'s.  I  had  seen  much 
earlier  in  my  visit  a  G.S.V.A.D.  Convoy,  but  have 
not  mentioned  it  because  I  saw  it  before  I  had 
really  grasped  essentials,  and  it  appeared  to  me 
then  just  a  plain  Convoy,  and  as  the  bare  facts 
of  it  were  not  as  spectacular  as  those  relating  to 
the  Fannies,  I  chose  the  latter  to  write  about. 

The  G.S.V.A.D. 's,  as  I  have  said,  rank  as  pri- 
vates, and  among  them  are  workers  of  every  kind 
— scrubbers,  cooks,  dispensers,  clerks,  motor  driv- 
ers. This  G.S.V.A.D.  convoy  which  I  had  seen 
was  made  up  of  girls  who  had  exchanged  from 


"AND  THE  BRIGHT  EYES  OF  DANGER"    99 

V.A.D.  convoys,  mostly  from  this  very  one  at 

T where  I  now  was ;  and  -so  they  happened 

to  be  all  friends  and  all  girls  of  gentle  birth.  But 
when  I  saw  their  quarters — in  a  couple  of  tall 
French  houses  that  had  been  converted  to  the 
purpose — I  was  very  upset  by  the  terrible  fact  that 
the  girls  had  to  share  bedrooms.  In  all  the  camps 
I  had  seen  since,  both  of  Fannies  and  V.A.D.'s, 
each  girl  had  her  own  tiny  room  which  she  cher- 
ished as  her  own  soul — which,  indeed,  is  what  it 
amounts  to.  And  the  Waac  officers,  of  course, 
have  their  own  private  rooms,  though  the  girls 

sleep  in  dormitories.    This  convoy  at  T was 

the  only  voluntary  one  I  had  come  across  where 
the  inestimable  privilege  of  solitude  was  missing, 
though  that  will  be  put  right  when  the  new  camp 
is  built. 

And  here  I  may  mention  that,  deeply  as  I  ad- 
mire all  the  girls  who  are  working  so  splendidly 
in  France,  I  think  perhaps  my  meed  of  admiration 
brims  highest  for  those  members  of  the  G.S.V.A. 
D.'s  who  are  gently  born,  for  this  very  reason 
of  the  sleeping  accommodation.  Let  us  be  frank, 
and  admit  that  for  the  generality  of  working  girls, 
such  as  the  Waacs  and  a  large  proportion  of  the 
G.S.V.A.D.'s,  it  is  not  nearly  so  great  a  hardship 
to  sleep  in  dormitories  as  it  is  for  girls  who 
have,  as  a  matter  of  course,  always  been  accus- 
tomed to  privacy.  It  is  not  so  bad  in  the  case 
of  members  of  a  G.S.  convoy  such  as  that  I  have 


100          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

mentioned,  where  the  girls  are  all  friends,  but 
what  of  those  ladies  who  live  in  the  big  camps 
and  sleep  in  long  huts  with  other  girls  of  every 
class,  all,  doubtless,  decent  good  girls,  but,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  often  girls  with  whom  any  ground 
of  meeting  must  be  limited  to  the  barest  common- 
alties of  life?  Also  sometimes  those  in  author- 
ity— those  who  are  and  always  were  professionals, 
not  amateurs — have  been  known  to  use  the  power 
given  to  them,  by  the  inferior  rating  of  these  girls, 
to  make  them  rather  miserable. 

Personally,  I  have  long  had  a  theory,  which 
will  doubtless  bring  down  on  me  howls  of  rage 
from  those  who  will  say  I  am  decrying  the  most 
noble  of  professions,  that  women  are  not  meant 
to  be  nurses.  It  brings  out  all  that  is  worst  in 
them.  The  love  of  routine  for  its  own  sake,  that 
deadly  snare  to  which  women  and  Government 
officials  succumb  so  much  more  easily  than  do  men* 
is  fostered  in  them.  And  so  is  the  love  of  au- 
thority for  their  own  sakes,  which  is  almost  worse. 
It  has  taken  nothing  less  than  this  way  to  show 
what  splendid  creatures  nurses  are  under  their 
starched  aprons.  In  times  of  peace  only  amateur 
women  should  be  nurses;  for  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  V.A.D.  nurses,  though  they  have  had 
long  enough  to  do  it  in,  have  not  developed  the 
subtle  disease  of  nursitis.  Evidently  nursing  is 
a  thing,  like  love-making,  which  should  never  be- 
come a  profession. 


"AND  THE  BRIGHT  EYES  OF  DANGER"  101 

I  was  glad  to  have  seen  all  the  different  con- 
voys I  had,  because  no  two  had  been  to  me  alike, 
and  to  each  I  am  indebted  for  a  differing  expres- 
sion of  the  same  vision,  which  is  the  vision  splen- 
did of  a  duty  undertaken  gladly  and  sustained 
with  courage.  From  my  first  convoys — the  Fan- 
nies and  the  G.S.V.A.D.'s — I  got  the  wonderful 

facts  of  it,  at  the  V.A.D.  Convoy  at  E I 

caught  that  side  of  it  which  I  was  most  glad  of 
all  to  encounter,  and  at  the  V.A.D.  Convoy  at 

T I  found  that  delightful  spirit  of  sheer  joy 

in  danger  which  is  too  precious  to  be  allowed  to 
die  out  of  the  world  just  because  there  happens 
to  be,  at  present,  such  a  great  deal  too  much  dan- 
ger let  loose  upon  it. 


CHAPTER   XII 

REST 

THE  snow  danced  in  a  fine  white  mist  over  the 
ploughed  fields,  and  drove  perpetually  against  the 
northerly  sides  of  the  tall  bare  tree-trunks  that 
lined  the  way  for  miles,  hardly  finding  a  hold  upon 
the  smooth  flanks  of  the  planes,  but  sinking  into 
the  rough-barked  limes  till  they  looked  dappled 
with  their  brown  ridges  and  the  white  veining, 
and  oddly  as  though  covered  with  the  pelt  of  some 
strange  animal.  High  in  the  web  of  bare  branches, 
the  clumps  of  mistletoe  showed  as  filigree  nests 
for  some  race  of  fairy  birds. 

Gracious  country  this,  for  all  the  desolate  white- 
ness; it  lay  in  great  rolling  slopes  with  drifts 
of  purplish  elms  in  the  folds,  and  on  the  levels 
winding  steel-dark  streams  along  whose  banks 
the  upward-springing  willows  burned  an  ardent 
rust  colour.  And  as  the  car  rocked  and  bounded 
along  and  the  wind  screen  first  starred  in  one 
place,  then  in  another,  then  fell  out  altogether, 
one  got  a  better  and  better  view  of  it  all. 

What  a  wonderful  people  the  French  are  for 
agriculture.  .  .  .  Hardly  a  man  did  I  see  all  the 

102 


REST  103 

days  I  motored  about  and  about,  but  I  saw  mile 
after  mile  of  cultivated  land,  the  sombrely-clad 
women  or  boys  guiding  the  slow  ploughs,  the 
rough-coated  horses  pulling  patiently — white 
horses  that  looked  pale  against  the  bare  earth, 
but  a  dark  yellow  when  the  snow  came  to  show  up 
the  tarnishing  that  the  service  of  man  brings 
upon  beasts.  Several  times  I  saw  English  sol- 
diers ploughing,  and  rejoiced. 

We  came  into  the  town  that  was  our  bourn 
in  the  grey  of  the  evening,  passed  the  grey  glim- 
mer of  the  river  between  its  grey  stone  quays, 
passed  the  grey  miracle  of  the  cathedral,  and  then, 
in  the  rapidly  deepening  dusk,  turned  in  through 
great  wrought  iron  gates  into  a  grey  courtyard. 

It  may  have  been  gathered  that,  much  as  I  ad- 
mire both  their  practical  perfection  and  their  spir- 
itual significance,  I  am  no  lover  of  camps,  which 
seem  to  me  among  all  things  man-created  upon 
God's  earth  about  the  most  depressing.  I  had 
lived  and  moved  and  had  my  being  in  camps  it 
seemed  to  me  for  countless  ages,  the  edges  of  my 
soul  were  frayed  with  camps.  From  the  moment 
of  walking  into  the  old  house  at  R a  wonder- 
ful sense  of  rest  that  brooded  over  the  place  en- 
veloped me.  The  thing  had  an  atmosphere,  im- 
possible to  exaggerate,  though  very  difficult  to 
convey,  but  I  shall  never  forget  the  miracle  that 
house  was  to  me. 

It  was  a  Hostel  for  the  Relations  of  Wounded, 


104i          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

and  there  are  in  France  at  present  some  half- 
dozen  of  these  houses,  supported  by  the  Joint  War 
Committee  of  the  Red  Cross  and  the  Order  of 
St.  John,  and  staffed  by  V.A.D.'s.  At  all  of  them 
the  relations  of  badly  wounded  are  lodged  and 
fed  free  of  charge,  while  cars  meet  them  and  also 
convey  them  to  and  from  the  hospital.  This 
much  I  knew  as  plain  facts,  what  I  had  not  been 
prepared  for  was  the  breath  of  exquisite  pleasure 
that  emanated  from  this  house. 

The  house  was  originally  a  butter  market,  and 
the  entrance  room,  set  about  with  little  tables 
where  the  relations  have  their  meals,  has  one  side 
entirely  of  glass;  the  lounge  beyond,  which  is 
for  the  staff,  is  glass-roofed,  while  that  opening 
on  the  right  hand  of  the  dining-place,  the  lounge 
for  the  relations,  has  long  windows  all  down  the 
side;  so  it  will  be  seen  that  light  and  air  are 
abundant  on  the  ground  floor  of  the  Hostel  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  it  looks  on  to  a  courtyard. 

From  the  relations'  lounge,  with  its  slim  ver- 
milion pillars  ringed  about  with  seats  like  those 
round  tree-trunks,  there  goes  up  a  curving  stair- 
case of  red  tiles,  with  a  carved  baluster  of  oak 
greyish  with  age,  a  griffon  sitting  upright  upon 
the  newel.  Up  this  staircase  I  was  taken  to  my 
room,  and  there  the  completion  of  peace  came 
upon  me. 

One  could  see  at  a  glance  it  would  be  quiet, 
beautifully  quiet.  Its  window  gave  on  to  the 


REST  105 

sloping  grey  flanks  of  pointed  roofs  and  showed 
a  filigree  spire  pricking  the  pale  bubble  of  the 
wintry  sky,  its  walls  were  panelled  from  floor  to 
ceiling,  its  hangings  were  of  white  and  vermilion, 
its  floor  dark  and  polished,  and  on  the  wide  stone 
hearth  burned  a  wood  fire.  And,  to  crown  all, 
after  tiny  huts,  it  was  so  big  a  room  that  the  cor- 
ners were  filled  with  gracious  shadow;  and  the 
firelight  flickered  up  and  down  on  the  panelling 
and  glimmered  in  the  polished  floor  and  set  the 
shadows  quivering.  I  lay  back  in  a  vermilion- 
painted  chair  and  felt  steeped  in  the  bath  of  rest- 
fulness  that  the  place  was. 

The  whole  house  was  very  perfectly  "got-up," 
the  maximum  of  effect  having  been  attained  with 
the  minimum  of  expense,  though  not  of  labour; 
it  all  having  been  achieved  under  the  direction  of 
a  former  superintendent  with  a  genius  for  decora- 
tion, who  is  now  V.A.D.  Area  Commandant  and 
still  lives  at  the  Hostel.  The  evening  I  arrived 
there,  she  and  the  staff  were  busy  stenciling  a  buff 
bedspread  with  blue  galleons  in  full  sail,  varied 
by  gulls.  Everything  is  exceedingly  simple,  there 
is  no  fussy  detail,  nothing  to  catch  dirt.  The 
walls  are  all  panelled,  and  painted  either  ivory 
or  dark  brown;  the  furniture  is  of  wicker  and 
plain  wood,  painted  in  gay  colours — rich  blues 
and  vermilion;  the  tablecloths  are  of  red  or  blue 
checks.  In  the  spacious  bedrooms  are  simple  col- 
our schemes — in  one  there  are  thick,  straight  cur- 


106          THE  BWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

tains  of  flaming  orange,  in  another  of  a  deep  blue, 
in  another  of  red  and  white  checked  material. 
The  floors  are  of  polished  wood  or  red  tiles 
strewn  with  rugs;  vivid-coloured  cushions  lie  in 
the  easy  chairs;  and  set  about  in  earthen  jars  are 
great  branches  of  mimosa  and  lilac  from  the 
South,  boughs  of  pussy-willow,  the  tender  velvety 
grey  ovals  blossoming  into  fragile  yellow  dust; 
all  along  the  sills  are  indoor  window-boxes  filled 
with  hyacinths  of  pink  and  white  and  a  cold  faint 
blue. 

On  the  walls  the  only  decoration  is  that  of  post- 
ers, and  these  create  an  extraordinary  effect  as  of 
a  series  of  windows,  opening  upon  different  climes 
and  strange  worlds,  windows  set  in  ivory  walls. 
Here  is  an  old  Norman  castle,  grey  against  a  sky 
of  luminous  yellow,  there  a  stream  in  Brittany 
which  you  can  almost  hear  brawling  past  the 
plane-trees  with  their  freckled  trunks,  while  be- 
fond  it,  through  another  window,  you  see  a  pergola 
of  roses  whose  deep  red  has  turned  wine-coloured 
under  the  moonlight,  and  beyond  that  again,  the 
white  cliffs  of  England  go  down  into  a  peacock 
sea.  And,  in  the  Red  Cross  dining-room,  a  poilu, 
his  mouth  open  on  a  yell  of  encouragement, 
'charges  with  uplifted  hands,  looking  over  his 
shoulder  at  you  with  bright  daring  eyes,  and  you 
do  not  need  the  inscription  underneath  of  "On 
les  aura!"  to  guess  what  spirit  urges  him. 

This,  then,  is  the  setting  for  one  of  the  most 


REST  107 

merciful  of  the  works  of  the  Red  Cross.  That  it 
is  appreciated  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  Christ- 
mas, at  this  house,  with  its  staff  of  Superintendent, 
cook,  parlourmaid,  housemaid  and  "tweeny,"  with 
one  chauffeuse,  there  were  forty  relations  of 
wounded  staying.  The  average  number  of  people 
for  whom  Army  and  Red  Cross  rations  are  drawn 
three  times  a  week  is  twenty-five,  but  for  these 
rations  as  for  fifteen  are  drawn,  as  the  food  sup- 
ply is  too  generously  proportioned  for  a  house- 
hold consisting  so  largely  of  women.  But  it  will 
be  seen  that  with  a  constantly  fluctuating  popula- 
tion the  task  of  housekeeping  is  no  easy  one, 
though  it  is  tackled  by  the  voluntary  staff  with 
gaiety  and  courage. 

They  have  troubles  of  tiheir  own,  too,  'the 
members  of  that  staff,  and  in  the  big  kitchen, 
where  among  the  dishes  on  the  table  a  pink  hya- 
cinth bloomed,  the  fair-haired  cook  I  saw  so  busily 
working  was  back  from  a  leave  in  England  that 
was  to  have  been  her  marriage-leave,  had  not  her 
fiance  been  killed  the  day  before  he  was  to  join 
her.  Now  she  is  amongst  her  pots  and  pans  again 
and  smiling  still,  as  I  can  testify.  The  "tweeny,1* 
who  also  describes  herself  as  a  boot-boy,  is  a 
young  war-widow.  Things  like  these  are  almost 
beyond  the  admiration  of  mortals  less  severely 
tested. 

The  material  difficulties  are  not  the  worst  in  a 
hostel  of  this  kind,  which  in  its  very  nature  pre- 


108          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

supposes  grief.  The  relations,  of  course,  are  of 
all  kinds,  after  every  pattern  of  humanity,  and 
each  makes  his  or  her  emotional  demand,  if  not 
in  active  appeal  to  sympathy,  yet  in  the  strain  that 
it  entails  on  the  sensitively  organised  to  see  others 
in  sorrow — and  unless  you  are  sensitive  you  are 
no  good  for  work  such  as  this.  This  hostel  is 
blessed  in  its  Superintendent,  an  American  V.A.D. 
worker  of  a  personality  so  simpatica — there  is  no 
adequate  English  for  what  I  mean — that  you  are 
aware  of  it  at  first  meeting  with  her;  and  she  is  a 
woman  of  the  world,  which  is  not  always  the  case 
with  women  workers,  however  excellent. 

Shortly  before  I  came  to  the  Hostel  a  very 
young  wife  arrived  to  see  her  husband,  who 
lay  desperately  ill  in  one  of  the  hospitals.  When 
he  died  she  became  as  a  thing  distraught  and 
could  not  be  left,  and  the  Superintendent  even 
had  to  have  her  to  sleep  in  her  room  with  her  all 
the  time  she  was  there.  Others,  again,  are  aloof 
in  their  sorrow,  though  it  is  none  the  less  tragic 
for  that.  The  first  question  on  the  lips  of  the 
Staff  when  the  chauffeuse  comes  back  from  taking 
the  relatives  to  the  hospital  is,  "Was  it  good 
news?" 

It  was  good  news  for  the  couple  who  arrived 
on  the  same  evening  that  I  did,  the  mother  and 
father  of  a  young  officer  who  was  very  badly  in- 
jured. I  saw  them  next  morning  in  the  lounge, 
sitting  quietly  on  either  sire  of  the  centre-stove, 


REST  109 

a  business  man  and  his  wife,  as  neat,  he  in  hi§ 
serge  suit,  she  in  her  satin  blouse  and  carefully 
folded  lace  and  smooth  grey  hair,  as  if  they  had 
not  been  travelling  for  a  day  and  a  night  on  end, 
racked  by  anxiety,  though  you  could  see  the  deep 
lines  that  the  strain  had  left.  He  looked  at  me 
with  those  patient  eyes  of  the  elderly  which  hold 
the  same  unconscious  pathos  as  those  of  animals, 
and  talked  in  a  low  quiet  voice,  and  it  seemed  al- 
most an  impertinence  of  a  total  stranger  to  assure 
these  gentle,  dignified  people  of  her  gladness  that 
their  only  son  was  safe,  yet  how  glad  one  is  that 
any  one  of  these  brief  contacts  in  passing  should 
be  of  happiness !  It  is  so  impossible  not  to  weep 
with  them  that  weep  that  it  is  a  keen  joy  to  be 
able  to  rejoice  with  them  that  do  rejoice. 

"It's  so  free  here  .  .  ."  he  told  me,  "that's 
what  the  wife  and  I  like  so.  No  rules  and  regu- 
lations, you  can  do  just  what  you  like  as  though 
you  were  in  your  own  home  ...  no  feeling  that 
as  you  don't  pay  you've  got  to  do  what  you're 
told."  And  there  was  expressed  the  spirit  of  the. 
Hostel  as  I  discovered  it. 

There  are  no  rules,  and  it  is  always  impressed 
upon  the  Superintendents  that  the  relations  are 
not  obliged  to  go  there,  that  they  do  so  because 
they  choose  to,  and  must  be  treated  as  honoured 
guests.  In  the  dining-room  there  are  little  tables 
as  at  an  hotel,  so  that  the  different  parties  can 
keep  to  themselves  if  they  prefer  it;  there  are  no 


110          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

times  for  going  out  or  coming  in,  no  times  for 
"lights  out,"  no  need  to  have  a  meal  in  if  the 
visitor  mentions  he  is  going  out  for  it.  The  rela- 
tions who  stay  at  these  hostels  are  guests  in  every 
sense  of  the  word,  and  there  is  not  one  trace  of 
red  tape  or  the  faintest  feeling  of  obligation  about 
the  whole  thing. 

And  that  must  have  been  what  I  had  felt  in  the 
very  air  of  the  place  when  I  arrived,  what  stole 
with  so  precious  a  balm  over  me  who  had  been 
in  camp  after  camp,  institution  after  institution. 
This  place,  with  its  quiet  walls  and  its  grey  shut- 
ters wing-wide  upon  its  grey  walls,  was  not  only 
beautiful  and  rich  with  that  richness  only  age  can 
give,  it  was  instinct  as  well  with  freedom  and  with 
peace. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

GENERAL  SERVANTS  AND  A  GENERAL  QUESTION 

I  HAVE  left  till  the  last  what  to  some  people 
will  be  the  dullest  and  what  is  certainly  the  least 
spectacular  of  all  the  work  done  by  the  women 
in  France,  but  what  is  to  me  perhaps  the  most 
wonderful  and  admirable  of  all.  I  mean  that  of 
the  Domestic  Staffs. 

For  there  is  something  thrilling  about  driving 
wounded,  something  eternally  picturesque  about 
nursing  them,  but  there  is  no  glamour  about  being 
a  general  servant.  ...  A  general  servant,  year 
in,  year  out,  and  with  no  wages  at  that,  for  I  talk 
of  the  voluntary  staffs,  girls  of  gentle  birth  and 
breeding  who  deliberately  undertake  to  wash 
dishes  and  clean  floors  and  empty  slops  day  after 
day.  I  think  heroism  can  no  higher  go,  and  I 
am  not  trying  to  be  funny;  I  mean  it. 

All  the  voluntary  camps  I  had  seen,  all  the 
hostels,  the  rest  stations,  and  many  hospitals,  are 
staffed  by  voluntary  domestic  help ;  and  the  girls 
they  wait  upon,  the  drivers  and  secretaries  and 
such  like,  are  eager  in  recognition  of  them.  But 
that  seems  to  me  about  all  the  recognition  they  do 

ill 


112  THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

get;  they  get  no  "snappy  pars,"  no  photographs 
in  the  picture  papers,  no  songs  are  sung  of  them, 
no  reward  is  theirs  in  the  shape  of  medal  or  rib- 
bon, nothing  but  the  sense  of  a  dish  properly 
cleaned  or  rugs  duly  swept  under.  I  consider 
that  there  ought  to  be  a  special  medal  for  girls 
who  have  slaved  as  general  servants  during  the 
war,  without  a  thrill  of  romance  to  support  them; 
a  "Skivvy's  Ribbon"  as  one  of  them  laughingly 
suggested  to  me  when  I  propounded  the  idea. 

Take,  for  example,  the  Headquarters  of  the 
British  Red  Cross,  at  the  Hotel  Christol  at  Bou- 
logne, to  which  I  returned  on  my  homeward  way, 
as  I  had  come  to  it  on  landing.  The  staff,  count- 
ing the  Commissioner  and  officials,  the  clerks,  typ- 
ists, secretaries,  and  Post  Office  girls,  amount  tq 
about  a  hundred  and  forty-five  people,  and  the 
house  staff  number  seventeen  and  are  all  V.A.D.'s. 
The  Hotel  Christol  is  also  the  headquarters  for 
all  Red  Cross  people  going  on  leave  or  arriving 
therefrom  via  Boulogne,  and  all  have  to  report 
there;  nearly  all  want  a  meal,  many  want  a  bed. 

The  men-workers  and  many  of  the  women,  such 
as  V.A.D.  Commandants,  etc.,  live  out  in  billets 
in  the  town,  but  the  manageress  and  her  assistant, 
the  Post  Office  Commandant,  the  girl  driver  of 
the  mail-car  with  her  orderly  (these  two  girls 
drive  about  sixty  miles  daily  with  the  mails),  the 
girls  of  the  telephone  exchange  and  the  rest  of 
the  Post  Office  girls,  all  "live  in,"  and  in  addition 


GENERAL  SERVANTS  113 

to  the  casual  Red  Cross  workers  who  may  appeal 
for  a  bed  any  time  there  are  the  relations  of 
wounded  who  have  been  put  up  there  whenever 
possible,  though  now  a  hostel  is  being  opened  in 
Boulogne  for  the  purpose.  All  the  people  working 
in  the  house  and  all  Red  Cross  workers  arriving 
by  boat  are  entitled  to  take  their  meals  at  the 
Christol,  as  are  all  Red  Cross  workers  in  Bou- 
logne, both  officers  and  privates,  and  the  average 
number  of  meals  served  is  2,500  a  week.  Four 
or  five  girls  act  as  waitresses  in  the  dining-room, 
and  three  are  always  in  the  pantry,  which  must 
never  be  left  for  a  moment  during  the  day;  so  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  headquarters  of  the  Red 
Cross  is  a  sort  of  hotel,  except  that  nobody  pays. 

There  are  French  servants  to  do  the  roughest 
work,  but  the  girls  have  plenty  to  do  without  that. 
The  house  staff  begin  work  at  seven  in  the  morn- 
ing; at  seven-thirty  in  the  evening  they  start  to 
turn  out  the  forty-two  offices,  which  they  sweep 
and  dust  every  day.  They  wash  all  the  tea-things 
(not  the  dinner-things),  and  clean  all  the  silver 
and  glass,  they  make  the  beds  and  do  all  the  wait- 
ing. A  pretty  good  list  of  occupations,  is  it  not, 
carried  out  on  such  a  huge  scale? 

The  girls  are  well  looked  after,  for  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  some  of  them  are  not  more  than 
eighteen,  and  their  parents  in  England  have  a 
right  to  demand  that  these  children  should  be  at 
once  guarded  and  cheered.  No  Red  Cross  girl 


114.         THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

is  allowed  out  after  half-past  nine  in  a  restaurant, 
and  none  is  ever  allowed  to  dine  out  unaccompa- 
nied by  another  girl.  But  when  a  friend  of  a  girl 
passes  through  Boulogne,  then  it  is  permitted  that 
she  and  another  girl  may  go  and  dine  with  the 
officer  in  question,  always  provided  they  are  back 
by  nine-thirty.  For  superiors  are  merciful  and 
human  creatures  these  days,  and  there  is  always 
the  thought  that  the  girl  may  never  see  that  friend 
again.  And  Heaven — and  the  superior — knows 
that  these  girls  need  and  deserve  a  little  relaxa- 
tion and  enjoyment. 

And  would  you  not  think  that  to  girls  who  work 
as  these  do  and  behave  so  well  would  at  least  be 
given  the  understanding  and  respect  of  all  of  us 
who  do  so  much  less?  Yet  how  often  one  hears 
careless  remarks  of  censure  or — worse — of  be- 
littlement.  That  to  other  nations  our  ways  may 
need  explaining  is  understandable,  but  we  should 
indeed  be  ashamed  that  any  amongst  ourselves 
fail  in  comprehension. 

iWhat  do  the  French'  thinE  of  our  women? 
That  is  a  question  that  inevitably  arises  in  the 
mind  of  anyone  who  knows  the  differences  in 
French  and  English  education.  Let  me  show  the 
thing  as  I  think  it  is,  by  means  of  a  metaphor. 

It  is  universally  conceded  that  marriage  is  a 
more  difficult  proposition  than  friendship,  that  it 
is  more  a  test  of  affection  to  live  under  one  roof 
and  share  the  daily  commonplaces  of  life  than 


GENERAL  SERVANTS  115 

it  is  to  meet  occasionally  when  one  cari  make  a 
feast  of  the  meeting.  Yet  this  is  not  to  say  that 
marriage  is  the  less  admirable  state,  but  only  to 
allow  that  it  is  one  requiring  greater  sacrifices, 
greater  tact,  and — greater  affection.  Therefore, 
when  it  is  admitted  that  the  presence  in  France  for 
nearly  four  years  of  English  soldiers,  English 
civilians  on  war-work,  and  the  consequent  erection 
of  whole  temporary  townships  for  their  accommo- 
dation, is  a  greater  test — if  you  will  a  greater 
strain — for  the  Entente  than  if  intercourse  had 
been  limited  to  an  occasional  interchange  of  a 
handful  of  people,  one  is  not  saying  anything  de- 
rogatory either  to  French  hosts  or  English  guests, 
but  merely  frankly  conceding  that  more  depth  of 
affection  and  understanding  is  necessary  than 
would  otherwise  have  been  the  case.  To  super- 
ficial relationships,  superficial  knowledge,  but  to 
the  big  partnerships  of  life,  complete  understand- 
ing. And,  if  that  is  never  quite  possible  in  this 
world,  at  least  let  the  corner  where  knowledge 
cannot  come  be  filled  by  tolerance. 

England  is  no  longer  on  terms  of  mere  friendly 
intercourse  with  France ;  the  bond  is  deeper,  more 
indissoluble.  .  .  .  And  as  in  marriage  the  closest 
bond  of  all  is  the  birth  of  children,  so  in  this 
pact  of  nations  the  greatest  bond  is  the  loss  of 
children-— lost  for  the  same  cause  upon  the  same 
soil.  .  .  . 

With  a  bond  as  deep  as  this — a  bond  always 


116          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

acknowledged  and  given  its  meed  of  recognition 
by  the  most  thoughtful  brains  and  sensitive  hearts 
— yet,  as  in  marriage,  there  are  bound  to  be  minor 
irritations,  points,  not  of  meeting,  but  of  con- 
flict. Trifles,  indeed,  these  points,  compared  with 
the  magnitude  of  the  bond  which  unites,  but  never- 
theless trifles  which  would  be  better  adjusted  than 
ignored. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  recognise  that  though 
the  things  which  unite  us,  our  common  ideals,  our 
common  needs,  are  far  stronger  than  any  differ- 
ence in  our  modes  of  thought,  yet  those  differ- 
ences exist,  and  that,  in  marriage,  it  is  often  said 
that  it  is  the  little  things  which  count.  .  .  .  Heav- 
en forbid  that  we  should  so  lose  sense  of  propor- 
tion as  to  say  it  when  the  matter  in  hand  is  the 
marriage  of  nations,  but  nevertheless  it  is  well  not 
entirely  to  forget  it.  ...  And,  of  all  the  dif- 
ferences in  customs  between  us,  there  is  probably 
none  more  marked  than  in  our  way  of  treating 
what  is  known — loosely  and  with  considerable 
banality — as  the  "sex-problem."  This  is  not  the 
place  to  discuss  those  differences,  though,  as  one 
who  has  known  and  loved  France  all  her  life,  I 
may  mention  that,  personally,  I  see  much  to  ad- 
mire in  the  French  system  and  could  wish  that 
we  emulated  it,  but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there 
at  the  moment. 

France  has  probably  evolved  for  the  happiness 
and  welfare  of  her  womenkind  the  sort  of  life 


GENERAL  SERVANTS  117 

which  suits  best  with  their  temperament  and  cir- 
cumstances. Women,  like  water,  find  their  own 
level,  and  no  one  who  knows  France,  and  knows 
the  devotion,  the  business  capacity,  and  the  good 
works  of  her  women,  imagines  them  to  be  the  but- 
terfly creatures  that  English  fancy  used  to  paint 
them  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  present  writer  had  occasion,  two  winters 
ago,  to  make  a  close  study  of  the  varied  scope  of 
women's  work  in  France — the  hospitals  for  train- 
ing of  femmes  du  monde,  the  schools  like  Le 
Foyer,  for  the  training  of  young  girls  of  the  upper 
classes  to  help  their  poorer  sisters,  etc.,  etc.,  all 
works  carried  on  unostentatiously  long  before  the 
war  broke  upon  us  and  proved  their  usefulness. 
The  "butterfly"  Frenchwoman  underwent,  before 
the  war,  a  far  more  serious  social  training  than 
did  the  happy-go-lucky  English  girl,  and  was  bet- 
ter equipped  in  consequence,  with  a  knowledge  of 
economic  conditions,  than  the  untrained  English- 
woman could  be. 

But  we  too  have  our  quality,  and  I  rather  think 
it  is  to  be  found  in  the  greater  freedom  which  we 
are  allowed.  We  were  not  so  well  trained,  but 
freedom  stepped  into  the  place  of  custom,  and 
gave  the  necessary  attitude  of  mind — that  unpre- 
judiced, untrammelled  attitude  which  is  essential 
to  the  quick  grasping  of  a  fresh  'metier.  That  is 
where  our  method — or,  if  you  prefer  it,  our  lack 
of  method — helped  us,  even  as  their  training 


118          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

helped  the  French.  And  the  French,  with  their 
extraordinary  facility  of  vision,  do,  I  think,  un- 
derstand that  we  have  simply  pushed  our  freedom 
to  its  logical  and  legitimate  outcome,  that  we  could 
not  be  expected,  after  being  accustomed,  for  many 
years  past,  to  be  on  terms  of  simple  easy  friend- 
ship with  men  as  with  our  own  sex,  above  all,  after 
working  side  by  side  with  them  since  this  war  be- 
gan, we  could  not  be  expected  to  say  that  we  could 
not  work  with  them  in  France,  though  we  could 
in  England,  or  that  perhaps  this  girl  would,  and 
that  girl  couldn't.  .  .  . 

We  naturally  proceeded  to  act  en  masse  as  we 
had  acted  individually,  to  do  on  a  large  scale 
what  had  been  done  on  a  small,  to  manipulate 
great  bodies  of  women  where  before  a  few  friends 
had  worked  together.  In  every  large  body  of  per- 
sons there  are  bound  to  be  one  or  two  individuals 
who  fail  to  come  up  to  the  required  standard,  but 
that  does  not  alter  the  principle  that  what  can 
safely  be  done  in  small  quantities  can  safely  be 
done  in  large,  provided  the  conditions  are  altered 
to  scale. 

And  that  is  what  we  are  doing,  and  what  our 
Government  is  helping  us  to  do ;  that  is  what  our 
Women's  Army  and  our  voluntary  workers  in 
France  are — the  expression,  on  a  large  scale,  of 
what  bands  of  women  have  been  doing  so  suc- 
cessfully on  a  small  scale  since  the  beginning  of 
die  war — helping,  and  even  replacing  the  men. 


GENERAL  SERVANTS  119 

And  just  as,  with  our  peculiar  training  and  mode 
of  thought,  it  is  possible  for  the  average  English- 
woman to  eliminate  sex  as  a  factor  in  the  scheme 
of  things,  so  it  is  possible  to  eliminate  it  in  greater 
masses.  In  other  words,  it  is  perfectly  possible, 
to  men  and  girls  brought  up  with  the  English 
method  of  free  friendly  intercourse,  to  work  side 
by  side,  to  meet,  to  walk  together,  and  to  remain 
— merely  friends.  Whether  that  is  a  good  thing 
or  not  is  another  point  altogether,  as  it  is  whether 
it  makes  for  charm  in  a  woman.  .  .  .  Certainly 
no  woman  in  this  world  competes  with  a  French- 
woman for  charm.  It  is  as  recognised  as  an  Eng- 
lishwoman's complexion — and  considerably  more 
lasting! 

Probably  it  is  only  ourselves  and  the  Ameri- 
cans among  the  races  of  the  world  who  could  have 
instituted  such  an  experiment  as  that  of  our  Wom- 
en's Army,  but  there  is  among  the  nations  one 
which  is  supreme  in  "flair,"  in  sympathy,  and  a 
certain  ability  to  comprehend  intellectually  what 
it  might  not  understand  emotionally,  and  that  na- 
tion is  France. 

I  am  confident  that  it  will  never  have  to  be  saidt 
that  when  Englishwomen  sacrificed  so  much — and 
to  a  Frenchwoman  one  does  not  need  to  point 
out  what  a  sacrifice  it  is  when  a  woman  risks  youth 
and  looks  in  hard  unceasing  work — that  French-! 
women  failed  to  understand  them  or  to  attribute 
motives  to  them  other  than  those  that  have  ani- 


120          !THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

mated  themselves  in  their  own  labours  through- 
out the  war. 

That  it  must  sometimes  look  odd  to  them  one 
knows  so  well;  how  can  it  be  otherwise?  They 
see  the  girls,  khaki-clad,  out  walking  without 
"Tommies,"  hear  the  sounds  of  music  and  danc- 
ing coming  from  the  recreation  huts,  where  the 
girls  are  allowed  to  invite  the  men,  and  vice  versa. 
Yet,  if  you  investigate,  you  will  find  out  that  they 
are  of  an  extraordinary  simplicity,  these  girls  and 
men,  in  their  intercourse,  in  their  earnest  dancing, 
taught  them  by  instructors  from  our  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  inspired  by  nothing  more 
heady  than  lemonade,  and  chaperoned  by  the 
women-officers,  who  have  attained  a  mixture  of 
authority  and  motherly  supervision  over  every  in- 
dividual girl  that  reminds  me  of  nothing  so  much 
as  the  care,  born  of  a  sort  of  divine  cunning,  of  a 
very  dear  and  clever  Mother  Superior  at  a  con- 
vent I  once  stayed  at  in  France.  For  the  interest- 
ing point  for  both  the  French  and  ourselves  to 
note  is  that  in  the  treatment  of  our  Women's 
Army  in  France  we  have  taken  a  leaf  out  of  their 
book.  We  look  after  the  girls  with  something 
of  that  love  and  care  which  surrounds  a  girl  in 
France. 

For  many  of  the  Women's  Army  are  working 
girls,  who  have  never  been  guarded  in  their  lives, 
whose  parents  had  probably,  after  the  lower-class 
English  way,  very  little  influence  with  them,  and 


GENERAL  SERVANTS  121 

who,  though  good,  honest,  rough  girls,  were  free 
to  roam  the  streets  of  their  native  towns  with 
their  friends  every  evening  once  their  work  was 
over.  Now,  for  what  is  for  many  of  them  the 
first  time  in  their  lives,  they  are  being  watched 
and  guarded  in  a  manner  that  is  more  French 
than  English,  and  which  I  find  admirable.  As  for 
their  walks,  their  friendships  with  men,  the  per- 
sonal observation  of  the  acute  French  will  show 
them  that  it  is  merely  our  Anglo-Saxon  way,  and 
the  official  statistics  will  prove  to  any  doubters 
how  well  both  the  girls  and  the  men  can  be  trusted 
to  behave  themselves.  We  are  a  cold  nation  if 
you  like,  but  there  it  is — it  has  its  excellences, 
if  not  its  charms. 

So  much  for  fundamental  differences,  which, 
when  intelligence  and  sympathy  go  out  to  meet 
them,  become  merely  points  on  which  tempera- 
ments agree  to  differ  amicably,  each  giving  its 
meed  of  admiration  to  the  other.  And  for  minor 
matters,  little  things  of  different  customs  only, 
that  nevertheless,  occasionally,  in  the  strain  of 
this  war,  ruffle  even  friends,  I  would  say  some- 
thing like  this,  which  is  in  the  hearts  of  us  all  ... 

France — dear  lovely  France,  to  so  many  of  us 
adored  for  many  years,  who  has  stood  to  us  for 
the  romance  of  the  world,  we  know  that  in  many 
things  our  ways  are  not  your  ways  and  never  will 
be,  nor  would  we  wish  it  otherwise.  To  each  na- 
tion her  distinctiveness,  or  she  loses  her  soul. 


138          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

But,  when  those  ways  of  ours  seem  to  you  most 
alien,  say  to  yourself:  "This  is  only  England's 
differing  way  of  doing  what  we  are  doing,  of  fight- 
ing for  what  we  are  fighting  for — the  saving  of 
the  right  to  individualism,  the  right  to  be  differ- 
ent. ,  .  ."  To  gain  that  we  are  all  having  to  be- 
come alike,  Just  as  to  win  freedom  we  are  having 
for  a  time  to  give  it  up,  and  the  great  thing  to  re- 
member is  that  this  terrible  coherent  community 
life  is  being  borne  with  only  that  eventually  we 
may  all  be  free  men  once  more.  Let  us,  for  all 
time,  differ  in  our  own  ways,  rather  than  agree 
in  the  German!  But  also  let  us,  while  differing, 
understand. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

NOTES  AND  QUERIES 

ON  my  last  evening  I  sat  and  thought  about 
the  girls  I  had  seen  and  known,  in  greater  and  less 
degrees,  in  passing.  And  I  saw  them,  not  as  un- 
thinking "sporting"  young  things,  who  were  hav- 
ing a  great  adventure,  but  as  girls  who  were 
steadily  sticking  to  their  jobs,  often  without  en- 
joyment save  that  of  knowledge  of  good  work 
well  done.  And  I  thought  of  those  prophets  who 
gloomily  foretell  that  the  women  will  never  want 
to  drop  into  the  background  again — forgetful 
of  the  fact  that  where  a  woman  is  is  never  a  back- 
ground to  herself.  I  smiled  as  I  thought  of  the 
eagerness  with  which  these  hard  workers  in  mud 
and  snow  and  heat  will  start  buying  pretty  clothes 
again  and  going  out  to  parties  .  .  .  and  I  was 
very  thankful  to  know  liow  unchangedly  woman 
they  had  all  remained,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they 
had  had  the  strength  to  lay  the  privileges  and  the 
fun  of  being  a  woman  aside  for  a  time. 

I  remembered  what  the  D.  of  T.  had  said  to 
me  when  we  discussed  the  question  of  how  the 
girls  would  settle  down  when  it  was  all  over,  and 

123 


THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

how  he  had  thought  that  even  if  they  did  not 
marry  all  would  be  well,  because  they  would  have 
had  their  adventure.  ...  I  remembered  too  how 
that  had  seemed  to  me  the  correct  answer  at  the 
time.  Then  later,  when  that  awful  web  of  de- 
pression caught  me,  and  the  horror  of  the  school- 
girl conditions  of  life  and  all  the  apparent 
"brightness"  had  choked  me,  I  had  all  the  more 
thought  it  true,  but  marvelled;  later  still,  when 
I  caught  glimpses  of  that  wonderful  spirit  and 
that  deep  sophistication  which  had  so  cheered  me, 
I  reversed  the  whole  judgment  and  thought  there 
was  nothing  in  it. 

Now,  thinking  it  all  over,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
somewhere  midway  lay  Truth.  These  girls  have 
had,  in  a  certain  sense,  their  adventure,  but  when 
it  is  all  over,  they  will  have  a  reaction  from  it, 
and  I  believe  that  reaction  will  be  pleasant  to 
them,  that  it  will  be  the  reaction,  and  not  the 
memory  of  adventure,  which  will  content  them. 
It  is  certain  that  to  anyone  who  has  worked  as 
these  girls  work  a  considerable  period  of  doing 
nothing  in  particular  will  be  very  acceptable. 
They  will  all  have  to  become  themselves  again, 
which  will  be  interesting.  .  .  . 

Dear,  wonderful  girls  .  .  .  you  who  wash 
dishes  and  scrub  and  sweep,  you  girls  of  the 
Women's  Army  who  replace  men  and  who  do  it 
so  thoroughly,  you  drivers  who  are  out  in  all 
weathers,  night  and  day,  sometimes  for  a  week 


NOTES  AND  QUERIES  125 

or  more  on  end,  who  face  hardships  such  as 

were  faced  in  those  three  weeks  at  T when 

there  were  no  fires  and  no  water,  how  glad  I 
am  to  have  met  you.  ...  So  I  sat  and  thought, 
and  then  I  picked  up  a  copy  of  The  Times  which 
had  just  come  over.  And  in  the  "Personal"  col- 
umn this  caught  my  eye : 

"Lady  wants  war-work,  preferably  motor-driv- 
ing, from  three  to  five  p.m." 

And  I  saw  that  it  was  not  only  those  far  re- 
moved from  the  war  who  misunderstood  both  what 
it  demands  and  that  which  has  arisen  to  meet 
those  demands. 

Do  we  not  nearly  all  fail  to  realise  the  magni- 
tude and  import  of  what  is  being  done  by  these 
unspectacular  workers  behind  the  lines,  who  are 
yet  part  of  war  itself,  and  daily  and  nightly 
strengthen  the  hands  of  the  fighters?  Some  of  us 
in  England  realise  as  little  as  you  in  far-off  coun- 
tries, and  yet  it  should  be  our  business  to  know, 
because  the  least  we  can  do  is  to  understand  so 
that  we,  in  our  much  less  fine  way,  can  help  them 
a  little,  one  tithe  of  the  amount  they  help  our 
fighting  men. 

Not  because  of  any  desire  of  theirs  for  praise 
is  it  necessary — I  never  saw  a  healthier  disregard, 
amounting  to  a  kindly  contempt,  for  what  those 
at  home  think  or  don't  think,  than  among  the 
women  working  in  France — but  because  it  is  only 
by  knowing  that  we  can  respond  generously 


126          THE  SWORD  OF  DEBORAH 

enough  to  the  needs  of  their  work,  and  only  by 
understanding  that  we  can  save  our  own  souls 
from  that  fat  and  contented  ignorance  which  in- 
duces a  sleep  uncommonly  like  death. 

Nor,  as  long  as  we  listen  to  the  girls  themselves, 
are  we  in  any  danger  of  thinking  too  much  of  them 
or  of  their  work.  Not  a  woman  I  met,  English  or 
American,  working  in  France,  but  said  something 
like  this,  and  meant  it:  "What,  after  all,  is  any- 
thing we  can  do,  except  inasmuch  as  it  may  help 
the  men  a  little?  How  could  we  bear  to  do  noth- 
ing when  the  men  are  doing  the  most  wonderful 
thing  that  has  ever  been  done  in  the  world?" 


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